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The parents of an Alberta toddler who died of meningitis should have taken their son to a doctor long before he stopped breathing, instead of relying on natural remedies such as ginger root, olive leaf extract and water with maple syrup, the Crown told a Lethbridge jury.

David Stephan, 32, and his wife Collet, 35, have pleaded not guilty to failing to provide the necessities of life for 19-month-old Ezekiel, who died in March 2012. The couple was charged in February 2013 and their trial started Monday.

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“I’m not saying they killed him, abused him or ignored him — they loved him,” Crown prosecutor Clayton Giles said, according to Global News. “They didn’t take him to a doctor until it was too late — far too late.”

RCMP said at the time that the boy had been ill for a couple of weeks but his parents only called for an ambulance on March 13 when he stopped breathing. Ezekiel was airlifted to the Alberta Children’s Hospital in Calgary, but five days later doctors took him off life support machines.