‘My world fell apart’: Carbon monoxide kills Johnson County teacher, sickens wife
Tammy Jo Smith-King bashed her head so hard against a shuttle bus when she found out her daughter was in the ICU Friday that she still has a bruise nearly a week later.
Smith-King was on her way from her Colorado home to the Denver airport, so that she could fly to meet her husband, when she got the heartbreaking news.
Her son texted, saying she needed to pick up her phone if the caller had a 913 area code. Then, a staffer at a Kansas City area hospital reached out and said her daughter, Katie Kobin, was fighting for her life, but her daughter-in-law Kenna Kobin-Campbell and their two dogs and cat had died.
A detective later said the couple was found in their home on Friday, suffering from carbon monoxide poisoning. The detector in their home went off, but they likely didn’t hear it in time.
“That’s when my world fell apart,” Smith-King said.
A stranger on the shuttle put her arm around Smith-King and told her she didn’t know what she was going through, but she could help Smith-King get through it. She walked in the airport “like a zombie,” and a United Airlines worker helped her find a new flight into Kansas City.
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‘They belonged together’
When Kobin met Kobin-Campbell around 2018, Smith-King said she saw a change in her daughter. The two were training in the same gym as competitive powerlifters, when Kobin “was crushing big time” and told her mom that she worried her future wife didn’t know she existed.
Eventually, the two got together and later wed surrounded by family in their backyard in September 2020.
Smith-King said her daughter-in-law was a kind and loving person who didn’t seem to have the ability to be mean. She was generous and always put others’ needs before her own. In photos, she smiled with her eyes rather than her teeth.
“All I know for a fact is that my daughter became whole and happy when she met Kenna,” Smith-King said. “They were soulmates. It was like they belonged together.”
Smith-King said her daughter had grown a thick shell from growing up as the daughter of a single mother, but when she started dating Kobin-Campbell, everything changed.
Kobin seemed to find peace with Kobin-Campbell. She became kinder and more compassionate and grew comfortable in her own skin. Her partner showed her there was good left in the world. From then on, Smith-King said she knew her daughter would be OK.
That was the “Kenna effect,” Kobin-Campbell’s sister, Jonna White said. Kobin-Campbell brought positivity everywhere she went. Growing up and even through her teen years, she said Kobin-Campbell was always confident in herself and wanted to help everyone around her feel the same.
Together, the two were “a couple of goofy girls,” who laughed constantly and brought their energy to every room. Sometimes, Smith-King joked, the family breathed a sigh of relief once Kobin and Kobin-Campbell left a room, because they could relax for just a moment.
“Any time they were around anybody it was like a couple of Tasmanian devils,” Smith-King said. “They both are so wound up. They couldn’t sit still. It was always just so doggone happy.”
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‘Devastating news’
Kobin-Campbell was an instructional coach at Shawnee Mission North High School. Kobin works as a project manager.
Before taking the instructional coach position, White said her sister worked as a high school math teacher in the Kansas City, Kansas and Shawnee Mission school districts.
Kobin-Campbell connected with her students and developed strong relationships with them. Many came to visit her classroom outside of class because they enjoyed talking to her. White said she’s seen Facebook posts from former students since her sister died thanking her for helping them enjoy and understand math.
“I feel like in my experience, it is a rare person who has a math brain but also has people brain,” White said. “Somebody who can relate well to people and love them and engage them and also understand and be able to explain math. That’s something that’s kind of unique.”
Coaching sports after school helped Kobin-Campbell get to know her students outside of class and teach young women to know their worth. Since she had coached volleyball at Washington High School, Shawnee Mission North asked her to start a girls’ wrestling team from scratch.
Even though she had never wrestled, Kobin-Campbell took on the challenge. She recruited students and showed off her bruises to family and friends as she learned and practiced the moves alongside her team.
When school officials learned of Kobin-Campbell’s sudden passing, principal David Ewers wrote a letter to parents letting them know the tragic news and offering resources for students, staff and other community members while they grieve.
“This is devastating news for all of us, as she was a cherished member of the North family,” Ewers wrote. “As you can imagine, this will be an extremely difficult time for her family, as they process their grief.”
School and district staff are available to talk with anyone, according to the message to families, and additional resources were being made available for students and staff this week. Ewers encouraged students to reach out to the school if they’re in need of support.
“There is so much that does not make sense about this tragedy,” Ewers said, “but we can be here to support each other during this difficult time.”
‘That’s how people die’
Smith-King has spent nearly a week watching her daughter’s recovery in the hospital. Kobin is “half there,” she said; sometimes able to focus her eyes or make a gesture like a thumbs up, but every movement takes lots of effort.
Doctors told Smith-King her daughter’s lungs and oxygen levels have improved, but she had a heart attack because of the carbon monoxide poisoning, and her heart will need to heal. They don’t yet know what brain damage she may have experienced because of the incident.
Her daughter has spent nearly a week in the ICU, and while the family doesn’t know what the bill will look like or what insurance will cover, Smith-King assumes her daughter will need to file for medical bankruptcy once she’s released. Loved ones started a GoFundMe to help Kobin and her family pay for medical bills and other expenses that currently has raised around $5,400.
“We’ll just fall off that bridge when we get to it,” Smith-King said. “I can’t even imagine… She doesn’t make that kind of money.”
Kobin and her wife followed the guidelines they were told when it came to installing a carbon monoxide detector in their home, Smith-King said. They had a detector installed by the water heater, which is in the basement on the other side of the home from their bedroom.
Since the incident, Smith-King has learned that residents should have a carbon monoxide detector near every area of the house where someone sleeps and on each level of the home, including the garage, according to the National Fire Protection Association. Residents should follow directions for installation and test the alarms at least once a month.
Smith-King hopes more people will read about carbon monoxide detectors and look into whether or not their home is properly protected.
“People need to understand that’s how people die,” Smith-King said. “This is one of those things that can be prevented.”
This story was originally published October 4, 2023 at 5:06 PM.
