DETROIT (WXYZ) – The mom of two children who died from hypothermia while sleeping in a cold van said she has asked for help for a long time.
Tateona Williams has been living in a van with her four children for the last three months.
This week, she woke up to find two of her children, ages 9 and 2, unresponsive. They were later pronounced dead from what appeared to be hypothermia.
The family’s van ran out of gas overnight in below-freezing temperatures.
“I lost the one who made me a mother. And I lost a 2-year-old,” Williams said through tears. “I’m dying inside. It hurts. It feels like my heart is breaking. But I have two more kids to live for.”
It’s been a long journey for Williams, with an even tougher battle ahead.
“I regret having to sleep out there so bad. I tell them, ‘I’m sorry, but I tried.’ I tried to keep hotels. I tried to pay people to stay there [in hotels]. It wasn’t working for me,” she said.
The family parked in the Hollywood Casino at Greektown parking garage at around 1 a.m. Monday to sleep.
Williams said when she woke up, she noticed her 9-year-old son was not breathing.
“I tried to give him CPR, I was just giving him CPR and kept saying, ‘Don’t leave me, don’t leave me please,’” she said.
Williams also realized her 2-year-old daughter was unresponsive. Both children were later pronounced dead at the hospital.
“She didn’t even get to live her life, she didn’t even get to do nothing,” Williams said. “She lost her life because I had to sleep in a car.”
In a press conference, the Detroit mayor and city leaders confirmed Williams did call the city’s homeless response team back in November, but nothing came of it.
“At least as far as we’ve been able to determine so far, the family never called back again for service. And as far as we’ve been able to tell, our homeless staff never proactively reached out to say, ‘What happened with your situation, was it resolved?’” Mayor Mike Duggan said.
Duggan is now calling for a review of the city’s homeless services.
Williams is now in a homeless shelter, and her two surviving children are with relatives.
“It took my two kids to die for y’all to help me? It just don’t work like that,” she said. “It hurt losing two kids in one night. You know, I don’t wish this on nobody, and if you can get help, please go get help, because I don’t want nobody else to go through what I’m feeling.”
A Detroit funeral home is providing funeral services for the kids free of charge.
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