Vinny's ISR of Elizabethtown

Good post!

2 weeks before Anna died at the pool I was so stressed taking my 3 little kids to the pool all by myself. On the day she died I was not stressed or nervous. In fact, I remember thinking this is going to be great! It wasn’t going to be just me watching the kids but now I had my husband, sister, brother, SIL and even lifeguards all there to help me. So I let my guard down.

💔

IF EVERYONE IS WATCHING THE POOL…NO ONE IS WATCHING THE POOL

It’s actually a psych concept I teach my high school students called DIFFUSION OF RESPONSIBILITY. I tear up every time I explain it to them knowing that it was one of the many factors related to Anna’s death that day.

WATER IS DANGEROUS.

That doesn’t mean you can’t have fun in water but you need to RESPECT it and always be careful!

Assigning a WATER WATCHER or even just making sure you verbally tell someone to be responsible for the little ones in water while you take a break is a MUST when you’re at a pool. Don’t let your guard down.

In fact, PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE 🙏

ALWAYS GUARD 4 ANNA AROUND WATER 💚💦

An unfortunate heartbreaking event like ours. PLEASE consider ISR lessons for your children. As you see safety measures can fail. A wonderful Christmas gift for children are gift cards for lessons. Go to my website below to buy gift cards and to reserve a spot for my January session.
www.VinnysISRofelizabethtown.com

Fla. Boy, 2, Drowns in Family Member’s Pool, Police Say: ‘Every Parent’s Worst Nightmare' A 2-year-old boy has drowned after falling into a family member’s pool in Florida on Sunday, according to police

ISR Sessions open now for:
January 8th, 2024 and
March 11th, 2024
Reserve your spot now. Get your children ready for spring and summer!
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Vinny's ISR of Elizabethtown THERE ARE WAYS WE CAN PROTECT OUR CHILDREN!

https://www.thetoagency.com/lead-funnel-michele-mattix

I have spots available for my October 23rd session!
Refresher and maintenance spots available as well!

ISR Michele Mattix Opt-In Lead Funnel

I have availability for spots in my ISR lessons for the August 14th session. Morning and afternoon starting at 2:30pm. Also for refreshers.
If interested email me. [email protected]
Or just message me!
I hope everyone is having a safe and fun summer!
'sISRofElizabethtown

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I hope sharing Judah's story (which mirrors ours and so many others) will help spread awareness.

Judah’s Story

It was late September and I distinctly remember the sound of my children’s feet, slapping against their flip flops and dodging the ends of the towels that were dangling over each of their arms. I remember lightly touching their heads, one-by-one and holding that moment to my heart for as long as I could. I am not sure why that moment grabbed me like it did, except that my momma heart somehow knew that I needed to make that memory. I had no idea then that it would be the last that I would ever be able to make with one of them.

Thirty minutes later I heard a piercing scream, pleading for my husband to run. It took me a long time to realize that the scream was coming from my own mouth. I was frozen, paralyzed in horror, unable to pick up my three-year-old, Judah, who was floating face down and unresponsive in our friend’s apartment pool.

I remember yelling, “God don’t take him from me...not my baby...please not my baby…” as my friend ran past me to pull my son’s limp body from the water. My husband raced to Judah’s side and herocially performed CPR by the side of the pool. At some point, Judah threw up on him but he never woke up.

We would later find out that throwing up during CPR is an automatic response that a person’s body does and not a positive sign of life.

Someone called 911 and our friend took over chest compressions for my broken husband, as he fell apart.

EMS came after what I knew had to have been hours. Later, Judahs records said 9 minutes from the time they were called but time has no meaning in this moment.

My husband had gone into shock from desperately trying to pump air through his own son’s body and his own life back into his baby’s lungs.

My other children were crying and screaming for their brother, as the trauma of watching him die branded itself into their eyes and hearts forever. Someone took them away from the scene. I don’t know who. I am thankful.

I was crumpled in a stranger’s arms, dying and pleading loudly for God to spare my baby boy.

Judah was sent to the best pediatric trauma unit in Houston. I rode with him in the ambulance and screamed at cars that wouldn’t get out of the way as medics worked on Judah’s beautiful little heart in the back of the truck.

Judah was hooked up to life support and we were led into a cold, stark room that reeked of years of coffee-fueled night shifts and tears.

It was there that we were told that our child had less than a 30% chance of survival. We were told that if he did survive, he would be in a vegetative state, dependant on machines for the rest of his life. The injury to his brain, the lack of oxygen for so long would be too much for him to recover from. He wouldn’t be the baby boy we knew before this happened.

We bowed and cried and endlessly begged God through the course of the next two days at Judah’s bedside. We held his still, cold hands, pleading for even the smallest twitch of a finger. We could do nothing but watch helplessly as every sign of life slowly slipped away from our little boy.

And then it was time.

We were told that all tests showed that his brain had died.

We were shuffled into another stark room where we hopelessly and numbly prepared for his organs to be given to other children who were in need of them. I can’t really tell you anything the papers said. I couldn’t see through the tears and the unspeakable pain. I just know I was giving away my baby boy, piece by piece.

After the caseworker finished with us, we walked into Judah’s PICU room one last time, to find it filled with multiple doctors and nurses running around the machines that were endlessly bleating. I heard a doctor yell, “I’m calling it. Time of death, 9:51pm” as the caseworker tried pointlessly to pull us back, away from the room.

Judah’s little body couldn’t take any more. He had gone into cardiac arrest for the fourth and final time.

He had gone to be with Jesus before us.

The last shall be first….

Judah had only been missing from us for a total of a few minutes the day of his accident (the time between one headcount of my other children at the pool and when we found him lifeless in it).

He must have decided to slip back into the pool to join his siblings. He didn’t have his puddle jumper on because he was supposed to be done swimming and resting next to me. None of us saw or heard him leave my side to get to the pool.

His three-year-old brain thought he could swim without his flotation device. He had no idea that the puddle jumper was the only thing that kept him floating and that he couldn’t yet do it on his own.

Judah had been given traditional swimming lessons, which at his stage only taught him confidence in the water, without teaching him any way to survive in it. We were doing what we thought would keep him safe.

He had his puddle jumper that I made him wear anytime he went into any water. We kept close watch on him and all of the kids….as much as we knew how to do at the time...and he still drowned. It only took around a minute from when he was sitting right next to me, wrapped in his towel, for him to slip away quietly and reach the water, and maybe another minute or two to find him in it.

What we didn’t know is that he needed to learn survival swim (https://judahbrownproject.org/survival-swim-school-websites/). He needed to have been taught how to save himself, if he were to ever get in trouble in the water.

What we didn’t know was how quickly drowning can happen (it can happen in the time it takes to answer a phone or send a text). What we didn’t know is that drowning is the number one cause of death in children ages 1-4 years old.

We didn’t know these things until we were watching our baby boy die in the hospital. We didn’t know, until it was too late for our Judah.

But now, having read our story…..you know.

I beg you to keep your children safer around the water. Know more than I did. Do better than I did.

Kids should know how to save themselves if they get into a water emergency, by getting on their backs, floating, and crying or yelling for help. They need to learn how to get into a position that they can sustain and be able to breathe until help arrives. Survival swim lessons teach that.

Adults should have 100% attention on the children, in or near water, 100% of the time. Non-swimmers should never be outside of an arm’s reach of a parent or an adult when near water. If you don’t get in the water with your kids, they will think it’s ok to go to the water without you.

Don’t rely on puddle jumpers and floaties. They can actually assist in drowning by teaching children bad body positioning (ask any swim instructor about this). They can give children under five a false sense of security. Kids that young can’t always make the connection that the puddle jumper is what is keeping them up, and not their own ability and they are more likely to go to the water later, without it on, because of the overconfidence that wearing them gives them. 69% of young child drownings happen during non-swimming times for a reason. The device does them no good if they don’t know they need it and go to the water without it while you are tending to other children or taking a bathroom break or cooking dinner.

Create barriers to getting to the pool or water. Pool safety fences, pool alarms, door alarms and locks on all windows, doors and dog doors leading to the water.

Learn and know CPR. It can mean the difference between life and death.

Please, learn from our pain, so that you never have to learn from your own.

Don’t let your child’s death be the reason you know about water safety.

Congratulations to these twin boys and their parents for making water safety a priority for their family. They are officially aquatic problem solvers and can find their way out of a pool!

https://www.thetoagency.com/lead-funnel-michele-mattix

ISR Michele Mattix Opt-In Lead Funnel

For all these reasons and more, please consider reading and sharing.🙏

This baby was taught skills before thrills! Give your child the ability to be skilled in the water before they can have fun in the water.

Before your child can be taught to have fun in the water, get them to learn how to be skilled in the water.

Welcome to ISR in E-Town! This is what we teach: