A mum-of-three and her partner "blame themselves" after falling asleep with their baby lying between them - leaving the suffocated boy unable to move and now possibly brain damaged.
The heartbroken mum has said one second changed everything and admitted she 'should have kept her baby in his crib' when she heard his cries in the early hours of the morning.
Breanna Brown, 22, from Newton, Wisconsin, was woken by cries from five-month-old son Karvion at around 5am on May 3.
Exhausted, she took him out of his crib and laid him between her and husband Ezell Brown, 23, in the bed for Ezell to feed him.
"I don't even remember falling back asleep," she explained in a GoFundMe launched to help the family with the expenses of the tot being in hospital.
"When Karvion woke me up I was really tired, so I nudged my husband and said, 'can you feed him? I just need a couple of minutes'," she said.
Next thing she knew, Ezell woke her up, screaming - Karvion had turned blue and was struggling to breathe.
"When Ezell woke me up later, he was on the end of the bed screaming, 'Karvion's not breathing'" explained Breanna.
"My son's arms and legs were flopped behind him. I could tell that he was turning purple and blue."
Breanna, who has a one year-old girl Layla and a four-year-old girl, Zoey, claims her son had fallen asleep on top of the covers in between the couple, saying he likely got tangled in the quilt in a desperate attempt to reach his bottle after Ezell fell asleep mid-feed.
"All hell broke loose from there on out," Breanna wrote in the GoFundMe.
"Panicking and screaming, I could visibly see him turning bluer."
Thinking her son was congested, the mum threw the contents of their dresser drawers onto the floor in search for the device needed to suction his nose.
"I could feel every second tick by," she said.
Breanna called 911 as the panicked couple tried to clear the tot's airways.
Ezell ended up blowing into Karvion's mouth in an attempt to help him breathe.
"Right before the EMT walked up the steps, my husband blew in his mouth and he started gurgling and his eyes started rolling," Breanna recalled.
"He was flopping back in Ezell's arms. You could just see his lips getting bluer and bluer by the second."
Ezell and Karvion were whisked away in an ambulance to HSHS St Nicholas Hospital in Sheboygan, Wisconsin.
Breanna said: "The whole thing felt like it lasted hours, but in reality, was only minutes from the 911 call to them showing up and leaving."
She went on to say she showed up to the hospital, not knowing what to expect.
"All I know is my baby needed help," she said.
"Everything was black around me. All I could see or hear were nurses and doctors surrounding my little baby.
"My only son. I was sobbing nonstop the whole damn time, so I stood in the hallway. I didn't want my son to hear me cry like that."
Breanna explained that Karvion had "16 seizures on the first day", saying "that went on for a week and a half."
Doctors gave the baby a breathing tube before moving him to Children's Wisconsin in Milwaukee around an hour after he arrived.
Breanna claims doctors confirmed Karvion was deprived of oxygen for around seven minutes, and had four subclinical seizures in the ambulance alone.
When Breanna was given the news that her child was being rushed to a specialist hospital, she said: "My heart shattered... I felt sick. Dizzy. Confused.
"I just wanted to rewind back to 5am, I should have just left him in his crib.
"It would have been okay for him to cry for a second, for me to be able to wake up fully and attend to my baby.
"Why didn't I just leave him in his crib, and give him the pacifier for a second. One second would have changed the whole outcome."
She said doctors fear he may now be blind as well as possibly suffering 75 per cent brain cell death due to the oxygen starvation.
Breanna admits she blames herself for being "mad" at her son for crying and wanting feeding, and that the last thing he may ever see could be while he was upset wanting his bottle.
"Me and him were so close," she said. "I always had him on me, and he was always looking at me and always smiling at me.
"I have photos up in his room of him looking at me with a big smile on his face and his eyes so alive.
"Now the last thing he remembers seeing is his mummy picking him up out of his crib angry [that he was crying and wanted a bottle]. and I can't live with that being the last sight he sees."
Karvion remains in hospital receiving treatment for his seizures, with doctors apparently uncertain what the future may hold for the baby boy.
Breanna explained that he's struggling to breathe and move, and medical professionals have even suggested the couple may want to consider their son's future and what kind of life he will have.
Writing on the GoFundMe, she said: "The doctors broke my heart the other day. 'I'm sorry to say but he might not live a normal life, like the girls are' I melted.
"My husband had to hold me up. He might have lost his sight as well and that's the hardest thing for me to accept.
"There's significant damage to the bridges that connect both sides of the brain so he might not be able to walk."
Breanna says the experience has left her burdened by guilt, and is now calling out to other parents, pleading with them to practise safe sleeping.
"I keep putting myself in my son's position of him trying to struggle to breathe, not knowing [what was happening]." she said.
"He can't get up, he can't do anything, nobody can hear him.
"I keep putting myself there and it's starting to wear on me but I can't stop. I can't sleep at night now."
When Karvion had a breathing tube in, he apparently opened one eye and tried to clench one hand, according to the mum.
"Once brain cells die, they turn white on the MRI and 75 per cent of his brain is white. I'm terrified," said Breanna.
The mum says she was angry at the time Karvion woke up early, and has felt so much guilt since.
She added: "I used to sleep with Karvion all the time, but never in the middle of us.
"But now going back and looking at it, I shouldn't have done it from the get-go - we never should have been used to that.
"As cute and cuddly as they look, love them enough to put them in their beds. If you truly do deeply love them, give them a kiss and a hug and lay them in their cribs, please."
