Three children have died of suffocation after becoming trapped in a freezer while playing, US authorities have confirmed.
Two of them - a six-year-old boy and a one-year-old girl - were siblings, while the third was an unrelated four-year-old girl who lived at the same residence near Live Oaks, Florida.
The three children were playing in the garden on Sunday evening, close to a chest freezer which had “recently been brought to the residence and had not yet been plugged in or brought inside”, WFLA reports.
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Police said that when the two adult women living at the property realised the children were missing, they began to search the property and surrounding area.
“When they opened the chest freezer, they discovered all three children inside of it, not breathing,” Suwannee County Sheriff’s Office said in a Facebook post.
Despite the attempts of the women and emergency services to resuscitate the children, all three were pronounced dead. An autopsy determined that they died of suffocation after spending between 30 and 45 minutes trapped inside the appliance.
Police say there is currently no suspicion of foul play, and that detectives believe the children entered the freezer voluntarily while playing and became trapped. It is thought that a metal hasp on the lid made it impossible to open from the inside.
County Sheriff Sam St. John said “words can’t describe” the horror of the case, and reminded Florida residents of a statewide ban on leaving unattended appliances outside a home - a statute designed to avoid such tragedies.
“So you have it on your property where children have access to it, then you’ll be criminally charged for that,” he said.
Authorities have not yet announced whether they plan to pursue charges against either of the adults on the property. The Tallahassee Democrat reports that the Florida Department of Children and Families has launched an investigation into the incident.