Mother dies days after toddlers found dead in Kentucky house fire

A Kentucky woman has died days after her twin toddlers died in a house fire in Harlan County.

Kentucky State Police responded to the fire on Ky. 522 in the Totz community around 11 a.m. Monday. They found a husband and wife lying on the ground outside the house with severe burns.

The man and woman, identified as 39-year-old Dennis Chad Howard and 42-year-old Allyson Howard, were airlifted to a Georgia hospital with life-threatening injuries. The couple owned the home.

The Harlan County Coroner pronounced both children deceased and will be sending their bodies to the medical examiner's office in Frankfort for an autopsy.

A neighbor told WYMT she tried to comfort the woman lying on the ground as help arrived.

"I got up and looked and saw everybody running. And then I looked up and about that time the whole house just exploded. And the neighbor over here and that guy went up and got her off the steps and brought her down in the yard. She was... you wouldn't want to see it," said Dana Petersen.

"She knew her phone number, she knew how old she was. She knew her kids' names. She just kept saying to me, 'Dana, don't leave me, don't leave me.' I said, 'I'm not going to'. And then she wanted me to go get her babies and I said, 'No I got to stay here with you.'"

The investigation into the fire is ongoing.