Children think their parents are sleeping and stay 3 days with...

The family of Alexander and Viktoria Yakunin, from the city of Saint Petersburg, Russia, had the sad news that the couple was found lifeless inside the apartment where they lived. Their children, aged five and one, were already alone with the bodies of their parents who died three days ago at the residence. The suspected cause of death is food poisoning after consumption of a pickle.

Relatives were concerned when the couple became incommunicado and missed a family reunion. They only got in touch when their five-year-old daughter answered a call.

The child, who cared for his one-year-old brother alone, said his father, 30, and mother, 25, had been “sleeping” for a long time and added that the man “had gone all black”.

Alarmed by the girl’s report, her aunt Natalia Bakulina, 36, went to the apartment and found the couple dead in bed. “I ran … and saw everything. I fell and screamed,” recalled the woman, according to the British website Mirror.

After the aunt called the emergency, she took the children out of the apartment where the children lived with their parents. The boys are now living with their paternal grandfather.

The day before he died, the family man had won a jar of pickles from his grandmother. According to the news agency 78.ru, he and his wife died after consuming the food, which was contaminated with botulinum toxin, a substance produced by the bacteria Clostridium botulinum.

Canned vegetables with low acidity or stored based on precarious conservation procedures pose serious risks of causing the disease known as botulism. The condition can cause paralysis and even death from respiratory failure.