Brave mum shares: The moving story of darling toddler Nate

Jane Fraser’s two-year-old son Nathaniel was the light of her life. Here, she tells the story of her most precious day with her son, and requests anyone who wishes to reach out do so by donation to the Nathaniel Leonidas Thor Canter for the Children's Hospital Trust to aid little ones with childhood heart disease.

This article was originally published in February, but we're re-sharing it following the tragic drowning death of another child.

We had a lovely time exploring the World of Birds and especially enjoying Natey's favourite part - playing in the sand pit with all the trucks! At one point as we walked through one of the bottom cages (the herons I think?), there was a bushy fence to our right, the top of it had some open space. A large crow suddenly cawed loudly and pecked at the fence in our direction. We squealed and got a fright. My sister said "That's a bad omen" and then had to explain what that meant to her son... Afterwards she said "I don't know why I said that?".We didn't think much of it and continued our visit.
We eventually said our goodbyes after our visit. Natey and I wound our way back home along the coast. Unperturbed by the holiday maker's traffic. Simply happy to enjoy each other's company as the day wound down. While we cruised through Camps Bay Natey said, "Mommy is not angry. Mommy is not sad. Mommy is happy."
I said, "Yes, I am very happy. Is Natey happy too?"
He said, "Natey also happy"
We drove on in amicable silence. He then said, "Mommy is beautiful"
I was amazed. I wondered who had taught him the word. Still I was positively glowing with love and happiness. Could the day have been any more perfect!?
As we got towards Seapoint I said, "Hey Natey do you want to go to the beach?". He of course said yes. So I turned off at the first opportunity and went to a beach I'd never been to before. Natey walked down the stairs and onto the beach himself. We sat on a rock and hugged. I took his last 3 beautiful photos and posted all 3 on Facebook right there. We chatted, he played with stones and shells, and we just soaked up the calm golden warmth of the evening.
After a while we went home. I got us out the car and then suggested we swim. He was keen. So we went out on the deck and stripped off. Me to my underwear and him naked. We had a glorious relaxed and cuddly swim. I told him I was cold and wanted to climb out. He said, "Swim more mommy". I told him I was cold, so wanted to get out, but that he could swim some more if he wanted to and I'd watch him. He said no and decided to get out. We cuddled in the big towel in the last evening sunshine. Then we went inside. (Where I am sure I closed the baby gate leading to the deck. Surely I must have? I always did. I always nagged other people about it!)
Then I started making dinner. Put on a load of laundry. Washed dishes. Copied a movie onto our hard drive to watch later. Made us each tea. Fed the dog and cat... And I actually think I stopped to marvel at how amazing this day was and how everything was just easy and RIGHT. I think I even smugly thought, "I am winning at life today!" Stupid fool!!
Natey was wandering around with me as I went about things, commenting, chatting, helping, asking what I was doing, as he would, "What you doing?" "Why you do that?" And then he appeared with a handful of dog food. I said "Natey. What you doing?"
To which he cheekily replied, "I messing the dog food"
Me: "Why did you do that?"
Him: "Why you do that?" (He never ever did answer that question with anything other than repeating "Why you do that?")
Honestly, I was not bothered. I even thought, "Whatever, the dog can eat off the ground..." But I halfheartedly asked him to go clean it up. He disappeared out the back door, down to the dog bowl and came back a short while later. I asked if he'd cleaned up and he gave me one of those head cocked to the side looks as if to say "Lady, do you really want me to answer you?" I think I tickled him and said "You're so naughty!" and just left it at that.
I was still making dinner and pottering about, and then saw I'd missed a bunch of messages on my phone from Andrew during the day. Feeling a bit bad that I had hardly communicated with him all day, or much the day before, and being conscious about wanting to connect properly with the important people in my life, I wanted to respond. Natey was asking for Play-Dough. I got it out, opened it up and put it on his table. I squashed it down and put a shape in it to show him what to do. I told him I was just going to go talk to daddy quickly.
He followed me. He asked me to play with the dough. He also wanted food. So I gave him a small snack, as we were going to be eating dinner shortly. I had a project open on my laptop. I remember clearly thinking "I really want to do this, but I don't have to right now. It can wait. Right now I am spending time with Natey. I can do this when he is asleep". Instead I flicked over to WhatsApp and sent about 7 lines to respond to Andrew's messages. This was at 19:57-19:58 (I still have the time-stamped messages.)

I then listened. It was quiet. Weirdly quiet. Too quiet. I almost called out, instead I got up and walked to the dining room, just a few paces away, around the corner.
Natey was not at his table. I immediately thought "Oh he's gone back down to the dog food". I was about to head through the kitchen to the backdoor to look down the stairs, when my instinct told me to 'sweep the pool'. Something I have always done. Every time I am not sure where a child is I always check the pool first. By default and as a routine. No part of me thought he was near the pool. I knew he wasn't. I nearly turned back, feeling silly...
Then I noticed the dog sitting out on the deck. I didn't think about it really. but how did he get out there? What was he doing there? Why was he sitting there, weirdly still, just staring into the distance? So I walked out to the deck. Glanced at the pool and saw nothing. I almost turned back again. I called Natey's name this time... I think my sub-conscience realised that if he was by the dog food the dog would have been with him, right...? I walked another 2 steps forward, to where I could see right down into the pool - and was horrified to see Natey there at the bottom of the pool.
RIGHT AT THE BOTTOM!
WHAT!?? He was JUST standing next to me. Not 2 minutes before. I had JUST said, "Let me just talk to daddy quickly". Not annoyed, or in anger, or pushing him away. In a light and friendly way.
I bounded into the water, grabbed him by the arm, and pulled him up. As I brought him up my main concern was that he was going to be crying and upset, and what a shame it was that I had created this sad blip on an otherwise perfect day... But then I realised it was far worse that that. He was not coughing, or spluttering, or choking. Or Anything.
I rushed inside with him, grappling with his wet slippery naked body, pretty much falling over the baby gate and trying to hold him head down so the water would drain out. I put him down on the dinning room carpet and started mouth-to-mouth and did some chest compressions...
After a very short time I realised I needed more help! I picked Natey up and I ran out to the street clutching him in my arms, pushing our alarm panic button on the way out. I yelled out to the guards, "Help! Do you know CPR?!"
They saw me and came running up to us. By which time I had put Natey down next to the driveway and had carried on doing CPR myself. I also sucked some saliva and vomit out of his mouth. Once they arrived and seemed to indicate they knew what to do, I let them take over. I told them he'd fallen in the pool and wasn't breathing. And they got started. I asked them to call an ambulance too and then ran back in to the house to grab a phone. I got the house phone and my mobile and ran back out to make sure they were doing CPR properly. I fumbled the phones and couldn't remember what number to dial but eventually dialed 107, and managed to place the call. Ages and ages seemed to pass. I still ran inside pulled on some shorts (I was still just in my underwear) and then phoned again. They told me I had just called. I told them then why was NO ONE coming? They told me that were coming and to wait. I know I made what I think was the second call to 107 at 20:05. that's 5-6 minutes after sending the Whatsapps! (The SMS reference for the first call came through at 20:06, less than 7 minutes after. That was after finding him, doing CPR myself, taking him outside, doing more CPR, handing over to the security guys, going back into the house, going back out again, and then dialing and making the call to the emergency services. He can't have been alone for more than a minute or 2.
How in that time could he have got out onto the deck and climbed into the pool? Silently, with no noise from the gate. No talking. No dog bark. No splash. And more importantly WHY!?? WHY did he go out there? What was he doing?!
Later that night we found his beloved front-loader truck floating in the pool. It had not been in the pool before. It was drying just outside the door from the day before. He must have climbed in with it. Gone down onto the second step... and? What?? Reached out for it and slipped in??
How can that happen so fast!!!!? How can the child who'd stayed pinned to me in blissful loving amicability all day, telling me every thought and feeling, just wander off like that? I can't can't can't make sense of it or understand it. My brain just can't erase that image of my beautiful perfect baby. Lying there at the bottom of the pool. Probably dead already when I found him.
How can that have happened when I loved him so much and when I was RIGHT THERE, with him, watching him and caring for him? Loving him and playing with him? Consciously focusing on him.
WHY was I so stupid to not let Andrew get someone to help me watch him? Why was I selfish about wanting to have him to myself??
I failed Natey. And Andrew. My boys and myself. I should have played dough with him like he asked me to!
I frantically called Andrew, the alarm was still blaring. He was riding his bike home. I told him to get home immediately. He jumped in a taxi as fast as he could.
I was getting more and more anxious because the ambulances were just not arriving. I was running up and down, fetching towels, blankets, pillows, my handbag, pulling dry clothes on. Just running up and down as if that was doing any good! Pacing, praying. Wringing my hands. Asking why no one was coming!!??
Eventually the security guys said, "We have a siren, do you want to go?" I said yes. And so we piled into their Mercedes armoured vehicle. They turned on the siren and drove like mad-men, racing and hooting, accelerating, braking hard... Go go go! After 4-5 blocks an ambulance passed us speeding up the hill. Our driver veered to the side of the road. The ambulance turned around and came back to us. And then another arrived and then another and another and another, and police and who knows who else? There must have been 4-6 ambulances, paramedics and police cars. We all piled out on the side of the road. The paramedics got to work. At first asking about the scar on his chest. I explained it was an aortic valve condition, but that it was fixed and he was fine. Please to just save him. They got an oxygen pipe in and got an ECG trace going... There was no heartbeat. NO FUCKING HEARTBEAT!!! I watched as they did CPR. Chest compressions, oxygen, adrenaline... There was a some movement on the ECG, then nothing, then something. I was praying to a god I don't believe in, begging, pleading, bargaining. I called Andrew again (at 20:19). Sobbing. Begging him to just get there... Stupidly believing that once he arrived everything would be ok. It always is when he is there.
I paced. I watched. I waited. Some well-meaning bystanders tried to make me go sit down, where I couldn't see or be 'upset'. Forget that. I was staying right there. Watching. Willing. Being responsible. Wanting it to be ok. Andrew's cab pulled up and he rushed over.

We held each other. We watched. I said I was sorry. I nearly passed out. I thought I was going to faint, or vomit, or die. I wanted to.
I was chanting, "Breathe baby" under my breath.
Andrew said, "He's not going to make it".
I just said "No no no no no no".
They said "Let's go to the hospital"
A ray of hope!?
We all piled in to various vehicles. The security guys took Andrew and I in the Mercedes. We flew off in 4-5 vehicles. Sirens blaring on all of them. The whole of Sepoint and Fresnaye knew something bad was going on. We arrived at the hospital at 9pm. We went into the ER. A female doctor dressed in all black scrubs (I have never seen that before?). Took one look and said to the team, "Why did you come here?"
They hesitated and then glanced at us. Someone turned to us and said, "Can we take you to the Comfort Room?"
Andrew said "No we are staying"
I said "We won't interfere, please just do what you need to do."
They were still doing CPR. It was 21:05.
The paramedic looked at the doctors and said, "We've been doing CPR for an hour. We came because we wanted to show the parents we were doing everything we could."
That line told me what I needed to know. It was over. He was gone. The love of my life. The absolute love and light of Andrew's life. The light of Quinn and Griffin, Melinda, all of our families and everyone that knew or even saw him, was gone. Dead.
They all walked out then. And pulled the door closed. Leaving Natey lying there on the stretcher. And Andrew and I just standing there. Andrew took out his phone and started taking photos. He also used a pair of scissors to cut a lock of Natey's hair off. Realising he was never going to reach his milestone 3rd birthday and first haircut...
I immediately walked up to Natey and started taking everything off him. Andrew looked concerned and kind of did a double take then (I think he was wondering if I was allowed to be doing that.), I didn't care. I carefully pulled out the oxygen tube, pulled off the ECG probes, pulled out the IV line. I picked up my beautiful perfect baby boy, wrapped him in his blanket and went to sit down with him.
I sat there with him, cradling him to my chest, smelling him, breathing him in, kissing him over and over. Waiting for him to just open those beautiful eyes and be fine. He looked like he was sleeping. He was soft and warm, his lips were full and rosy. He felt like he was THERE.
After a while they took us to the Forensic Pathology Services (aka the Morgue) in the ambulance. We had to say goodbye to him there and hand him over. We had to talk to officials, police men, paramedics. Nothing made sense. I have no idea what happened there.
A kindly police constable took us home afterwards. Where we didn't sleep. The next morning we had to go back and see him again at the morgue to 'identify the body'. Worst experience ever.
Our beautiful baby. Beautiful beautiful beautiful boy. Our perfect fairy-tale.
The End.