When a woman decided to check-in on her unwell husband via a security camera inside their home, she heard what she thought was the sound of him “snoring.”
It was only later when she returned to their apartment that she discovered the tragedy that had unfolded and what that “snoring” had most likely been.
Jaime Marsh, from Florida, is still struggling to comprehend what happened to her husband, Chris, on Saturday, August 23. The day had started ordinarily enough. “I was working,” Marsh told Newsweek. “He was fine when I left at 6:35AM.”
It soon became apparent that Chris was unwell though. “He told me he was laying down after I got to work, during a phone call, because he was having blurry vision,” Marsh said. Marsh was initially worried. “I told my coworker I was going to go check on him at 8AM if I didn’t hear from him,” she said.
However, some of those concerns were allayed when she checked in on Chris via a security camera in their home. “I heard snoring through the WiFi camera,” she said. “It seemed like he was sleeping.”
As the day progressed though, Marsh became worried again. “He wasn’t answering his phone and I didn’t hear from him so I went home to check on him,” she said.
Marsh returned home at around 12:20 P.M. As soon as she stepped through the door to their home and was greeted by an eerie silence, she knew “something wasn’t right.”
What happened next is difficult for Marsh to describe. She found Chris unresponsive and became very upset. Struggling with how to deal with what she had discovered, Marsh left the apartment and sought help from a neighbor. They called 911 and an EMT was dispatched to the scene. Despite working tirelessly to revive Chris for the next 30 minutes, he was sadly pronounced dead at the scene.
Marsh still doesn’t know what caused Chris’s death. “I still don’t know what happened as I’m waiting on autopsy results,” she said.
In a heartbreaking twist, Marsh was informed by police that the noise she heard on the webcam was “agonal breathing”, a term referring to a type of breathing heard when someone is not getting enough oxygen. It’s usually heard in cases of cardiac arrest or stroke and is a natural reflex of the body.
A study published in the Annals of Emergency Medicine indicates the "presence of agonal respirations is associated with increased survival." Sadly, Chris was alone when he collapsed with no one qualified and present to administer CPR that could have potentially saved his life. There's no way Marsh could have known that was what she was hearing that day.
Marsh opened up about what happened to her husband in a post shared to TikTok under the handle jaimemarsh80. The heartbreaking post went viral with 5.9 million views.
It’s a welcome response, and Marsh needs all the support she can get right now.
“It’s been horrible,” she said. “I haven’t been able to return to work. I was living off the proceeds of a GoFundMe but I had to close it so I would be eligible to move into a low income apartment,” she said.
“I’m staying in the area for now but I don’t really know. It’s all kind of hard to think about the future right now.”
Chris was 52 when he passed away, leaving friends and family bereft. “He was a very outdoorsy person,” Marsh said. “He loved helping people, he loved nature. He loved snakes, he loved his family and his cats.”
For now Marsh waits for answers, comforted only by her memories of Chris and what he meant to her. “My fondest memories are how he took care of me. How much he loved me. All the things he’d do for me,” she said.
Marsh hopes her TikTok videos raise awareness of her situation and what happened to Chris. She also hopes it will encourage anyone watching to keep their loved ones close and hug them tightly.
