HOUSTON — One mother is making prevention her mission after her own son drowned in the family’s backyard pool.
Jenny Bennett lost her son, Jackson, at 18 months old.
“Jackson was the sweetest, smartest little boy – I thought he was going to be our future president,” said Bennett.
She is an ER nurse and had Jackson in swim lessons, where he was the star of the class.
“I thought if we watched Jackson while he was swimming in the pool, he would be safe against drowning, but toddlers aged 1-4 most often drown during a non-swim time," she said.
Bennett says that's what happened to her son.
“He had wandered outside through our dog door that is normally locked and found the pool," she said. "He had been missing from our house for 5 minutes when we realized he wasn’t upstairs with his sisters."
She found him floating, face down in the pool.
“Being a nurse, I pulled him out of the water and I started CPR, but it was just too late. It only takes 30 seconds for a child under 30 pounds to drown," said Bennett.
Jackson was rushed to the hospital but did not survive.
It’s taken her years of healing, but this mom turned her grief into advocacy for prevention.
“I really need to emphasize layers of protection – not just one thing is going to work," she said.
Layers like fences, alarms and locks. As well as constant supervision, designating a “water watcher” and removing toys from the water when no one is swimming.
This mom shares pool safety lessons because if it happened to her Jackson, it could happen to anyone.
“The stigma around drowning is so negative and people are so quick to judge parents as neglectful, when really it could happen to any parent, good parents, parents who watch their children," said Bennett.
She started an organization called Parents Preventing Childhood Drowning. Bennett encourages everyone to get swim lessons, specifically survival-based lessons for young children.