Life Matters

This week's mailbag covered grandparenting, flexible schooling and reaction to our story on pool drownings, which prompted Jacqui to write:

'I was standing in the bathroom and your segment about pool drownings came on. Immediately I was rocketed back 22 years to when I pulled my 2-year-old son from under the pool cover of a friend's pool. I felt again the blind panic when I was unable to locate him, relived again the 10 minutes it took to locate him. The sheer terror came again to me as I stood in the bathroom. He was blue, a colour I never want to see again on a person's skin, he wasn't breathing – my friend started CPR, the ambulance took forever to arrive, the nurse from up the road came, the trip to hospital was long. His father came and joined me and I saw blame in his eyes. The doctor on duty in intensive care came and saw me and told me to expect the worst – significant brain damage as he had been under the water for so long. I was uncontrollable in my grief and my blame. I sat by his bed all night. Finally I went to sleep. Then the nurse woke me. My son had regained consciousness and was asking for an icy pole. I couldn't believe what I was seeing.

'He is now six-foot tall, good looking and about to graduate from law school. He has no memory of what happened, other than a dislike of water on his face. I, however, have carried that moment with me every day since, relive it over and over, feel the guilt as if it was yesterday. I will never forgive myself for taking my eye off him. He moved so fast. It will never go away.'

Guests

Presenter

Richard Aedy

Producer

Kerrie Jean Ross

Story Researcher and Producer

Tracey Trompf

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