'In a dark place': Father of twins who died in co-sleeping tragedy speaks out
The dad of the twin baby girls who died in a co-sleeping accident while in bed with their mum is struggling to process the tragedy, and said his autistic son still searches the home for his sisters.
Six-week old Violet and Indiana were found unconscious at their Sunnybank Hills home, in Brisbane’s south, last Wednesday. One was pronounced dead at the home, while the other died days later in hospital.
Speaking with the Courier Mail, their dad said he and his wife were in a “dark place” while battling to come to terms with what had happened.
“Our daughter is almost five, we told her the truth. We didn’t say they had fallen asleep...we told her they had died,” he told The Courier Mail.
He said it was only the second time they had tried a co-sleeping arrangement, with the couple familiar with the risks involved, but struggling with the sleep deprivation involved in having newborn twins.
The chemical technician explained how his wife had told him to sleep in another room to get some decent sleep and be refreshed to take the kids to school in the morning. But tragedy struck immediately when he entered his room the next day.
“I got to name her Violet,” he said. “She was my little cutie. When I went in... I knew she’d gone. Indiana was still warm and my wife was thinking enough to call for help, but at the hospital we were told she had lost too much oxygen.
“We knew she wouldn’t make it.”
The babies left behind an older sister who is almost five, and a two-year-old brother who has autism.
GoFundMe established to help shattered family
Close family friend Kieran Garratt told Yahoo News Australia the parents had become “ghostly” with grief since the loss of their formerly “perfectly healthy and extremely beautiful” twins.
“I’ve spoken to the parents and spent a lot of time with them as well. They’re not coping at all, as you can imagine. I don’t even have a set of adjectives for it. They’re just ghostly. Haunted,” Mr Garratt said.
Mr Garratt established a GoFundMe page to support the family, and wrote how the girls had left behind a “big sister, big brother and two heartbroken parents”.
Many offered their condolences to the parents and siblings of the twins.
“I am so very sorry for the tragic loss of your precious daughters,” one person wrote.
Police said their deaths were not being treated as suspicious.
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