On one of the worst days of my life my son nearly drowned. This morning I saw this blog I felt I had to share it. In our case it was 100% true that the near drowning was a silent thing.
How my son nearly drowned
We were lucky enough to have a pool in Cape Town. The pool was small and relatively shallow with a large 2 metre wide shelf that was just a foot or two deep. A wonderful pool for the kids, or so we thought. On this particular day the temperatures were in the high 30’s. It was scorching and as a family we had spent the entire day splashing in an out of the pool. The kids usually wore armbands but at this time we had taken them off our 3 year old as he was happily messing around on the shallow shelf. We were about a metre away from him. I was sitting facing him talking to my husband. For a brief period, perhaps 20 seconds, the place where my hubby was standing and my squinting into the sun meant I didn’t have my eyes on my little boy.
Suddenly my husband moved and I saw my little boy at the bottom of the pool.
My clearest memory is of him just standing there. He wasn’t struggling or tying to swim to the top, I remember him just looking kind of happy, no fear at all. There had been no sound. No warning. He had just stepped off the self and silently sunk to the bottom of the pool.
Of course we dragged him from the water straight away. He was thankfully alive and conscious but he was vomiting water and in severe shock. We called an ambulance and the guy and the relief was palpable when the medic said he was ok but to watch out for secondary drowning*.
Parental guilt
It was the worst thing that has ever happened to be me as a parent. The guilt incomparable. Rupert was ok physically but was too scared to enter a pool for years afterwards. His fear was picked up on by his little brother and our boy’s fear of water was a cross I carried with me. This fear was learned Through my mistake. It was all my fault.
20 seconds
The thing is I must have looked away for no more than 20 seconds. Just 20 seconds. 20 seconds for him to vomit up water. 20 seconds for me to spend 2 years trying to coax him back into the water. I don’t think that 20 seconds is massively neglectful, but that’s all it takes. If he had died how would I have lived with myself? How many nights would I have lain awake asking myself ‘why didn’t I just put his arm bands on’? ‘Why didn’t I move out the sun’? I know it would have killed me, because every day until he learned to swim I felt dreadful and asked myself those very questions.
The point of this post is not public self-flagellation but to support the fact in the attached blog that drowning is silent. Drowning is sudden. When it comes to kids we should do all we can to ensure their water safety and then a bit more.
A happy ending
It is a story with a happy ending. All 3 of my children, aged 5 and 6, are now certified water babies. Swimming in advanced classes, in the pool at home every single day for hours at a time. I still don’t leave them alone… they can swim like fish but who know what may happen when I’m out of sight. My heart is easier now that they have found their love of water again. Perhaps in a way it was the best thing that could have happened to me… so many people lose their children every year over silly little mistakes that shouldn’t add up to anything but do. That near miss taught me to that you can never be too careful.
In case you haven’t read the blog already, please read it here. It’s a really great insight.
https://www.soundingsonline.com/voices/drowning-doesnt-look-like-drowning