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Malfunctioning heater leads to Fort Worth toddler's death

Keri and Larry Volmert put their 17-month-old daughter Sammie to sleep in her crib one night in February, only to discover her lifeless body the next morning. The cause wasn't SIDS, but a malfunctioning heater.  

FORT WORTH -- Keri and Larry Volmert put their 17-month-old daughter Sammie to sleep in her crib one night in February, only to discover her lifeless body the next morning.

The cause wasn't sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS), but a malfunctioning heater.

"We miss her every second of the day," Keri Volmert said. "There's a very large hole in our family without her here."

On Feb. 28, the Volmerts put their daughter to bed, just as they did every night. The room temperature was set to 72 degrees, but somehow overnight, the heating system malfunctioned.

The Volmerts' thermostat.

Sammie's nursery is on the second floor of the family's home, an area that is heated and cooled by a separate HVAC system than downstairs, where the master bedroom is located.

"She did not make a noise at all," Keri said. "We always heard her if she cried."

Keri and Larry Volmert

They didn't discover the problem until the next morning, when the temperature had risen to more than 100 degrees.

"As soon as I got to the top of the stairs, it was very warm -- I mean, hot," Larry Volmert said. "I ran to her room, opened her door, and found her passed away."

They tried to resuscitate Sammie, but it was too late. Her official cause of death was hyperthermia -- an elevated body temperature caused by external conditions.

Experts say it is extremely rare for a child to die of hyperthermia in a home. It is more common if a child is left in a hot car.

"Infants and young children are much more susceptible to heat-realted injury, in that they have a very large body surface area for their weight," said Dr. Corwin Warmink, medical director for Cook Children's Emergency Department. "Their thermoregulation is much poorer than adults."

While it's a rare and unusual case, the Volmerts recently shared their story on Facebook and say they've received messages from others who've also lost children to hyperthermia in a home.

The Volmerts have contacted a lawyer and are considering legal action against the manufacturer of their heater.

Keri is now on a mission to warn other parents, and her Facebook post has already been seen more than 2 million times.

Keri Volmert

"I want people who have two-story homes to realize the danger, because we had never heard of this," Volmert said.

She encourages parents to invest in a baby monitor that is equipped with a temperature sensor and alarm.

"If I would have read about one case like this, I would have had the temperature monitor," she said.

A photo of Keri Volmert with her daughter, Sammie.

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