Posted on 08/06/2002 6:53:43 AM PDT by Trust but Verify
Three girls crawl into chest, suffocate
By MEG JONES and GINA BARTON of the Journal Sentinel staff Last Updated: Aug. 5, 2002 Three young sisters crawled into a cedar chest while playing in their central Wisconsin home and suffocated Monday, authorities said.
Anne, Darlene and Carla Oberholtzer - ages 2, 4 and 6, respectively - were playing outside as their mother did farm chores Monday morning at their home in rural Clark County near Unity, Sheriff Louis Rosandich said.
Shirley Oberholtzer, 32, went inside the home in the Town of Beaver around 11 a.m. to make lunch, he said. "As she began to make dinner, she noted the younger girls were not making any noise, which she thought was unusual as she could normally hear them talking and playing around the house and farm," Rosandich said in a statement.
According to the sheriff:
Oberholtzer and her two older daughters - ages 11 and 13 - began searching their house room by room when they couldn't find the younger girls. They eventually found them inside a locked cedar trunk in an upstairs bedroom and dialed 911 at 11:40 a.m.
All three were not breathing when their mother found them.
"Apparently, all three had crawled inside to play," Rosandich said.
A sheriff's deputy arrived within minutes and began CPR on the victims. The deputy also told Oberholtzer how to perform the procedure so she could help before ambulance crews arrived.
The girls were taken to St. Joseph's Hospital in Marshfield, where they were pronounced dead on arrival between 12:37 and 12:48 p.m., hospital spokeswoman Carla David said.
The sheriff said the deaths appear to be caused by suffocation and no foul play was suspected.
Spencer EMS Coordinator Jason Foth arrived on the scene a few minutes before noon with his community's ambulance crew. They transported one of the children to the hospital.
The children had been taken out of the cedar chest by the time Spencer's ambulance arrived, Foth said in an interview.
"This is a tragedy of course - three siblings. It's losing a sibling times three," Foth said.
Loyal's ambulance staff and Fire Department also were called to the scene because there were multiple victims.
"Any time we deal with a case involving a child, it's especially tough," said Foth, who has served on the Spencer EMS staff for 12 years. "It was very taxing on all the responders."
Bishop Clair Horst, minister at Pine Grove Mennonite Church in Granton, which the Oberholtzers attend, said the family did not wish to speak to the media. He said the girls' father, Philip Oberholtzer, was not home at the time of the incident but arrived shortly after they were found.
At about 7 p.m., more than a dozen black vans and trucks - some with bumpers and hubcaps painted black, a local Mennonite custom - and a few horse-drawn buggies were parked in the gravel driveway of the family farm 10 miles west of Unity.
About 10 men and boys, all dressed in dark suits with white shirts, gathered on the front lawn comforting family members. A child-sized picnic table and a swing set sat empty nearby.
The family had six children, five girls and a boy, neighbors said.
A painted sign in front of the farmhouse reads "Things that grow." The Oberholtzer family runs a fruit and vegetable stand and sells dried flower arrangements from the home, which until last year was a dairy farm, neighbors said.
News of the tragedy spread quickly through the small farming community.
"We saw the ambulances and police cars and heard the sirens," said neighbor Virginia Reis. "A lot of medical people were running in there with stretchers. We got the (details) from a Mennonite lady in the bank."
Junitta Nikolai, who lives across the street from the Oberholtzers, often saw the children ride by on their bicycles.
"The 4-year-old always waved. She was real cute. She had pigtails," she said.
A man who answered the phone at the Oberholtzer home Monday afternoon declined to talk to a reporter. Philip Oberholtzer's uncle, Amos Oberholtzer, also declined to talk about the girls.
Unity is about 15 miles northwest of Marshfield.
When I saw the headline, I thought, "Darwin Award candidates." As I started to read the story, I thought, "Okay, the mother did it." By the time I finished reading, I was thinking, "What a tragic story."
How refreshing to hear of grief-stricken family members telling the press to take a hike rather than desperately lunging for their 15 minutes of fame.
We have an old ceder railroad trunk in our room that I store out of season clothes and use the top for whatever.
Saturday afternoon my 4yo pushed al the laundry off the top of it opened it and climbed in - something she had never done befoe. Fortunately hubby was only in the next room when he heard the thump of the lid and I heard it down stairs and went flying up.
The trunk is now the TV stand and even I can't open it without assistance.
The girls simply passing out before they realized they were trapped and could scream..
The size of the house preventing potential screams from being heard.
The pleasant smell of cedar.
There is also strange irony in the idea that, in part, a lock on a cedar chest, I assume, is to protect heirloom-type items.
I've second guessed myself from here to next year - much as I am sure this mother has, and I just never thought it posed a safety hazard. There's always stuff on top of it and even I have a time lifting the lid.
I can not fathom the grief of this family.
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