4-Year-Old Clings To Life After N.J. Mother, Baby Die In Blizzard

Passaic, NJ - The Passaic community is reeling and coming to the aid of a family who is mourning two tragic deaths that happened during the weekend blizzard.

Sashalynn Rosa, 23, and her 1-year-old son, Messiah, died Saturday from carbon monoxide poisoning.

Authorities say Rosa was in the car with her two children, trying to stay warm while she was waiting to be shoveled out. They were there for 20 minutes, police said.

They did not know that snow filled the tailpipe. Carbon monoxide seeped in. Probably within minutes, Rosa and Messiah died, police said.

Her daughter remains in critical condition. The family and the community are keeping vigil as the 4-year-old girl clings to life.

“The doctors say they don’t think she’s [the daughter] going to make it. Doctor says she has a slight chance to make it,” the daughter’s grandfather, Felix Bonilla, told WABC-TV.

A GoFundMe page has raised more than $4,500 by late Monday, money that will be dedicated to the mother and young son’s funeral and burial costs, and help the family as they maintain hope for the girl.

“We are pleased with the results so far. The family is discussing the funeral arrangements right now,” according to the page.

The tragic deaths of Rosa and her young son were discovered Saturday night around 8:15 p.m., when authorities responded to a car parked outside 47 Sherman Street. When they arrived, they found three family members unresponsive inside the car, police said.

They were brought to St. Mary’s Hospital, where Rosa and Messiah were subsequently pronounced dead, police said.

“It’s hard to lose them like that,” Bonilla told WABC-TV. He told the television station that his son, Felix Bonilla, Jr., identified as either the mother’s boyfriend or husband in the media, had been digging out the family’s car Saturday night while the woman and their two children sat inside.

Then, he and others discovered what happened.

One neighbor told WABC-TV that she and paramedics immediately tried to help. “I tried to help the [4-year-old] girl, and I put my mouth in. Girls and paramedics worked so hard, so hard to save the kid,” eyewitness Isabel Carmona told the station.

But Rosa and her son could not be revived.

“The paramedic, he cry, and the police cry; everybody cry,” Carmona, told NBC New York.

The Record captured the scene this way:

“The car was still half covered with snow Sunday afternoon, showing where the father stopped in the middle of cleaning it. A snow brush was on the windshield where he had left it. A small memorial was placed on a snowbank to the left of the car. It included flowers, candles and a small cross.”

Those close to them say Rosa and Bonilla were always there for the children.

“She was always with her kids – it was the only thing you’d see on her Facebook; pictures of her and her kids. Honestly, that tells you the story better than I ever could,” Angel Sanchez, 22, who lives one block away, told The Record.

Photo: Sasha and Messiah from GoFundMe