An early-morning domestic shooting in Alabama left a woman fighting for her life, two children narrowly spared, and a man dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound, according to police.

Officers with the Rainbow City Police Department responded to reports of gunfire on Tuesday, Feb. 3, and found a woman suffering from multiple gunshot wounds inside an apartment. Due to the severity of her injuries, she was airlifted by helicopter to a hospital, where authorities later said she was in stable condition.

Inside the home, police also found 46-year-old Eddie Charles Ellis Jr. dead from what investigators described as a self-inflicted gunshot wound. Authorities said Ellis had been in a romantic relationship with the woman he shot, and they are treating the case as an apparent attempted murder-suicide.

Perhaps most disturbing, police confirmed that two children under the age of 16 were inside the residence at the time of the shooting. While neither child was physically injured, officials have not released details about where the children were located during the gunfire or who alerted authorities.

The woman involved has not been publicly identified, and police have released few details about what led up to the shooting. Investigators said the incident remains under active investigation as they work to piece together the events that unfolded inside the apartment.