A Florida family is mourning after their four-year-old twins suffocated to death after falling asleep in their wooden toy chest.
“Not many will know the pain of losing two children at the same time, and losing them in a way that makes no sense, but I have to believe that something in this universe chose them specifically, maybe to protect them from some future tragedy, or maybe because their souls were too perfect for this world,” the children’s mother, Sadie Myers, wrote on Facebook.
In her heart-wrenching post, Myers explained her husband Donn Starr had put the couple’s four children to bed on August 25 while she was at work.
At some point that night the twins, Aurora and Kellan, got up and decided it was time to play. This wasn’t something unusual for them. Their parents often found them the following morning asleep in “some weird place in their room with toys left everywhere so mom and dad can see proof of their late night playing.”
“Friday night, the weird place they decided to snuggle up and go back to sleep was in their cedar toy chest that we use to store all their stuffed animals.. They pulled out all but a couple stuffed animals, I guess they left some to keep it comfy in there, then they laid inside head to toe with one arm each over their twin and I’m assuming said ‘good night kell kell’ and ‘night night sissy’… Sometime during their sleep one of them must have moved or kicked during a dream and it caused the lid of this old wooden cedar chest to close,” Myers wrote.
When she awoke in the morning and couldn’t find the twins panic ensued.
Myers, Starr, and the family’s two older sons turned the house upside down looking for Aurora and Kellan. They even searched outside, but didn’t have any luck.
Finally one of the twin’s brother searched his siblings’ room again and found them snuggled together in their toy chest.
“Mommy!,” he said innocently. “I found them! They are so silly just sleeping in the toy box.”
At that moment Myers knew.
The mother of four admitted she had no idea that when the lid to her children’s toy chest closed not only did it become air-tight, but it became soundproof as well.
“As they slept, all snuggled up together, they slowly ran out of oxygen within a couple of hours and passed away. They never even knew it was happening. There was no sudden gasp for air, it was a very slow transition from sleep to passing on….”
Police and paramedics responded to the scene and life-saving measures were given, but both children were pronounced dead.
While the family will mourn the siblings’ deaths, they will also forever celebrate the lives they lived.
“We were so very LUCKY to get the gift of having the twins with us for even a short time, because they changed us all for the better and brought sooo much light and love into our lives, every second with those twins was full of laughter, silliness, dancing, silly questions and funny faces, games and jokes, happiness and LOVE!!!”
Myers also hopes her family’s tragedy will prevent another.
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Please pray for this family as they mourn their little ones’ lives. This is a horrific tragedy that no one should have to face.
