Texas family forced to ration oxygen for their baby amid power outage

‘A lot of people don’t know the severity of what’s going on’

Historic cold and power cut has left a family rationing their baby’s oxygen in Texas (Getty Images)

A young couple in Texas is forced to ration their five-month old baby’s oxygen in absence of equipment that run on electricity due to the days-long power cut in the state.

The baby, named Christopher Garcia who lives in Killen, Texas, was born premature with weak lungs and was brought home from the hospital just three weeks ago, before the storm hit, according to a report by CNN.

His mother, Angel Garcia is a nurse, and had been providing oxygen to the baby using an electric machine that turns the air in the room into oxygen. However, power failure in the state has shut that option down.

“We’ve had to use our cylinders,” Ms Garcia told CNN. “Those went out and they only deliver those once a month,” she said. 

Now that Texas has been struggling in the dark from Monday night, following a massive snowstorm, the family is running out of oxygen containers and options that do not require electricity and like millions of others, struggling to keep themselves warm in the deadly weather.

“We’re not able to plug in his pulse oximeter to check on his oxygen. We’re keeping a constant eye on him to see how he’s doing,” Ms Garcia told CNN.

Ms Garcia, her husband and their two children have been trying to keep the family warm using makeshift heaters with candles and burning even her 3-year-old daughter’s toy blocks when they started running out of wood.

“A lot of people don’t know the severity of what’s going on. People are tearing down their fences to burn,” she said. “We started burning my daughter’s little wooden blocks because it was just too cold.”

“Not everyone has gas but we waited in line about an hour and finally we were able to get some gas,” she said.“There’s pretty much nowhere to go. Everyone in Texas is in the same boat. If they have electricity, there’s no water. If they have water, there’s no electricity.”