Photo:Sadie Myers
Sadie Myers
A Florida mother who lost her4-year-old twin childrenlast month when they fell asleep inside an antique toy chest and the lid closed them in, is speaking out about what happened so other parents won’t experience a similar tragedy.
At some point, according to Myers, the twins woke up and decided to play in their room rather than go to bed — something that they had previously done. During that night, Aurora and Kellan opted to snuggle together inside a toy chest that contained their stuffed animals.
The next morning, Myers got up to go to work and her two older boys, Axton, 10, and Caelum, 8, were playing outside in the yard; she assumed that Aurora and Kellan were still sleeping. But her husband noticed that the twins were not in bed when he checked on them. As the family searched throughout the house, one of the older boys found the twins in the toy chest.
“I’ll never stop asking myself how I overlooked something this dangerous sitting in their bedroom, filled with stuffed animals,” Myers tells PEOPLE. “How did I not know that a toy chest could be air tight and sound proof? It doesn’t make sense. How did I not notice it latched on its own every time the lid closed? Why didn’t anyone tell me? I didn’t know and no one told me because it was an ANTIQUE, an old cedar chest.”
Myers also says she’ll never forget the image of her twin children’s faces smiling up at her. “They were so good and so innocent," she adds. “I want them back so bad but I know all I can do is make sure I never go a single minute without thinking about them and do whatever I can to keep this from happening to anyone else.”
In 2014, theU.S. Consumer Product Safety Commissionwarned consumers about the potential dangers of storage and toy chests, saying that incidents involving them have occurred when children go inside them to hide or sleep. The agency said that there had been 34 reported fatalities of children under the age of 18 since 1996 due to these chests.
“The children could not get out and suffocated in the enclosed space because these spaces are airtight with no ventilation,” the agency said in a news release. “Other children were strangled while reaching for items in a chest and the lid fell onto them or because their necks became entrapped between the chest’s walls and its lid.”
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“We rarely needed a sitter but when we did, it was only family: either my mother, my sister, or my now 18 year old nephew. I tried so hard to protect my angels, but I never imagined a piece of furniture would be the reason I would lose them,” she says.
She also says: “My sister and I talked about how we’ve grown up and had our children in an era where toy manufacturers do a pretty good job of making things safe. There are warning labels on EVERYTHING. We’ve become dependent on other people to make things safe for our kids. We’ve become complacent.”
Myers' sister, Deanna, set up aGoFundMefor the family following the tragedy. As of Monday, the fundraiser has generated over $40,000.
“I want to thank EVERYONE for your kind words and for all the support and donations given,” Myers wrote in the GoFundMe update. “You all have no idea what it means to me and my family to know there are so many people out there that care so deeply, especially for people you don’t even know.. Reading all your kind messages definitely helps dull the pain, if even for just a moment, I greatly appreciate the help. Thank you all so very much.”
source: people.com
