A Wisconsin mother woke up to the horrifying discovery that her young son had been suffocated and unable to move after his parents fell asleep with the toddler between them.
Breanna Brown, 22, said she and her husband Ezell Brown, 23, are “guilt-stricken” and “blame themselves” after their son Karvion, aged just five months, was left possibly blind following the ordeal, according to Kennedy News & Media.
On 2 May, Ms Brown was woken up by the cries of her child. She picked him up from his crib and handed him to her husband to feed before they went back to bed.
But the young mother had her sleep interrupted yet again at 5am – this time by the screams of her husband at the sight of Karvion’s now blue face as he struggled to breathe.
Ms Brown said that the baby had fallen asleep on top of the covers in between the parents and possibly got tangled as he reached for the bottle as the father fell asleep in the process of feeding him.
They called an ambulance while attempting to blow air into Karvion’s mouth while his lips were becoming “bluer and bluer by the second”.
The child was taken to HSHS St Nicholas Hospital in Sheboygan, Wisconsin, where a breathing tube was used before he was moved to Children’s Wisconsin in Milwaukee after about an hour.
According to the mother, Karvion was without oxygen for about seven minutes, and while in the ambulance, he suffered four subclinical seizures.
Ms Brown said that at first, Karvion was having 16 seizures a day. His physicians now worry that he could be blind and he may have lost three-quarters of his brain cells.
She said that “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’.”
“When Ezell woke me up later, he was on the end of the bed screaming, ‘Karvion’s not breathing’,” she added. “My son’s arms and legs were flopped behind him. I could tell that he was turning purple and blue.”
“Right before the EMT walked up the steps, my husband blew in his mouth and he started gurgling and his eyes started rolling,” the Newton, Wisconsin mother said. “He was flopping back in Ezell’s arms. You could just see his lips getting bluer and bluer by the second.”
“He was probably trying to kick his legs and move his arms and wiggle for his bottle, so I’m thinking while he’s doing that he pulled his cover over his head and got wrapped in it,” she explained. “Everything was black to me. All I knew is that my son needed help and I couldn’t give it to him. I just felt lost.”
“He had 16 seizures on the first day, and that went on for a week and a half. He was having up to 16 seizures in day,” Ms Brown said, adding that “he hasn’t moved or opened his eyes or made any noises since they removed the breathing tube on 21 May”.
She said she was “so close” with her son. “I always had him on me, and he was always looking at me and always smiling at me.”
“Now the last thing he remembers seeing is his mummy picking him up out of his crib angry, and I can’t live with that being the last sight he sees,” she said.
Ms Brown said that doctors have asked if a life of being blind and having lost 75 per cent of his brain cells is an existence they want him to go through.
The parents are currently fundraising for Karvion’s treatment on GoFundMe.
“I keep putting myself in my son’s position of him trying to struggle to breathe, not knowing” what was happening, Ms Brown 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 the breathing tube in, he opened one eye and tried to clench one hand,” she recalled. “They’re saying that he might be blind now and that it might not be him intentionally opening his eyes they might have just fallen open.”
“Once brain cells die, they turn white on the MRI and 75 per cent of his brain is white. I’m terrified,” she said. “A doctor came in and told us that we don’t have to make any big decisions ... but asked if this is the quality of life we want our son to live.”
She said that at the time, “I was angry that Karvion woke up early, and I feel so much guilt because I was mad that my son wanted a bottle”.
“Ezell is feeling the guilt really bad, and I keep telling him not to. We’re both equally to blame,” 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,” the young mother said. “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.”
