A grieving mother shared a grave warning after her twin daughters died in an unthinkable tragedy at their family home in 2023.
In a tragic post on social media, Sadie Myers spoke out regarding the potential dangers of a seemingly harmless object in the home. She and her husband, Don Starr, had purchased a large cedar chest to store toys – little did they anticipate the heartbreaking it would bring about.
Sadie explained how she had been at work when her husband put the couple’s children to bed. When Sadie returned, she checked on her little ones herself before having dinner and retiring for the night.
At some point, though, Sadie believes her twins, Kellan and Aurora, got up and moved from their bed, perhaps to play.
“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’…” she wrote.
“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,” she continued.
“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. 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.”
When the family awoke on Saturday, they found the twins missing from their beds. Ultimately, it was one of their siblings who discovered them in the toy chest.
“Mommy I found them!” Sadie recalled him saying. “They are so silly just sleeping in the toy box.”
Sadie’s post reads: “I ran in 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… I hope knowing this helps in some way, and I hope if you have a toy box like this that you destroy it immediately!!!”
Sadie’s husband Don, meanwhile, held off on detailing his heartbreak for a time, in the forlorn hope that it was all a bad dream.
“I guess I was waiting to make sure this isn’t an extremely long, specifically horrific nightmare. But since it’s just getting harder everyday and it seems pretty public now anyhow, here goes: My beautiful family was stricken by tragedy — the loss of our beautiful perfect twins,” he wrote.
“Please send all of the love, strength and good energy you can muster up to Sadie, my beautiful big boys and me — and of course the rest of the family, who have been a rock for us and are more loved and appreciated than I can express,” he added.
“Hug and kiss those kids for me — even the grown-up ones. I love you all.”
Rest in peace, Kellan and Aurora.