A young family in Colorado is facing an unimaginable loss, preparing to say goodbye to their baby boy after a sudden illness turned their lives upside down in a matter of days.
Their son, Alastor, just over a year old, had always been full of life—happy, energetic, the kind of child who quietly becomes the center of a home without anyone realizing how much space he fills until everything changes.
For his parents, Eric Ryan and Maegan Coffin, that change began on what should have been an ordinary morning.
On January 9, Alastor woke up congested and struggling to breathe. It looked like something many parents recognize at first—a respiratory illness, uncomfortable but manageable. Concerned, they took him to an emergency department in Northglenn, near Denver, hoping for reassurance and treatment.
Instead, they were sent home with medication.
When his condition didn’t improve, they rushed him back.
That was the moment everything shifted.
After an X-ray, Alastor stopped breathing.
Doctors worked quickly to intubate him before transferring him to another hospital, but by then, his mother believes there may have been a critical period where he was without oxygen. That possibility now hangs heavily over everything that followed.
In the days that came after, hope slowly gave way to a devastating reality.
Alastor was later declared to have no brain function.