Twins Aurora (right) and Kellan (left) suffocated to death after falling asleep in their cedar toy chest at night (Picture: GoFundMe)
Four-year-old twins who fell asleep together inside a wooden toy chest were found lifeless after the lid shut over them.
Aurora and her twin brother Kellan were to put to bed last Friday night by their father, Don Starr, as their mother Sadie Myers worked at night to avoid having a baby-sitter look after them.
The twins would often get up in the middle of the night and wake up asleep in other places, according to Myers.
‘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,’ wrote Myers in a Facebook post on Monday.
The twins crawled into a cedar toy chest and were found dead the next day after the lid closed over them (Picture: GoFundMe)
The twins took out some stuffed animals and left some inside, and fell asleep each with an arm over the other.
‘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.
‘Something I did not know and I’m sure many others don’t know is that most wooden toy chests once closed are AIR TIGHT and also sound proof.
‘So as they slept, all snuggled up together, they slowly ran out of oxygen within a couple of hours and passed away.’
The twins’ heartbroken mother warns parents that cedar toy chests become air tight and soundproof when closed (Picture: GoFundMe)
The next morning, Myers panicked after seeing her twins missing from their bed and the family searched frantically for them. One of their older brothers opened the chest.
‘“Mommy!,” he exclaimed proudly. “I found them! They are so silly just sleeping in the toy box,”‘ wrote Myers.
‘I went to check and within a few seconds I knew something wasn’t right, but I also quickly realized it was already too late. It makes no sense to me and never will.’
Sheriff’s deputies who arrived at the home in Florida administered life-saving measures on the twins but could not revive them.
The twins’ mother Sadie Myers (left) worked nights and their father Don Starr (second from right) worked in the daytime to avoid having a baby-sitter look after them (Picture: GoFundMe)
‘As much as these wonderful parents have tried to blame themselves, they can’t,’ wrote Myers’ sister in a GoFundMe page to help the family.
‘They couldn’t have known that this would happen or done anything to stop it. Four year old twins do so many silly things and they always do them together.’
The fundraiser had garnered more than $19,000 as of Tuesday night.
A service for Aurora and Kellan will be held on September 15.
‘Not many will know the pain of losing two children at the same time, and losing them in a way that makes no sense,’ Myers wrote.
‘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 lid of a cedar toy chest shut over the twin sister and brother and they suffocated to death.