(Sound of water)
We drove home in tears and
shock that I wouldn't ever get to lay eyes on my beautiful girl again.
I always thought, you know, he's going to be on the shoreline, he made it,
you know. He's just, because of the cold or whatever, he's just, you know, passed out
or too weak to move, but, you know, he's going to be on the shore somewhere.
I remember going out into the garage and he's sitting in the passenger seat of
Riley's car and, Catch it. And they drive away. And I treasure that memory. That's the
last time I saw Connor alive.
(sound of water)
Well, my daughter was on her last vacation before going back to school
with her best friends, Katy and Gabby. All three girls loved fishing together.
It was a wonderful day. I mean I have pictures made 15 minutes before the
accident. They were having a great time.
The boat, for some unknown reason, swapped ends and
threw Kali overboard.
She was under for, you know, several seconds, then she surfaced.
So Katy actually drove the boat up. And they loaded her in the boat.
It was pretty much chaos. Just trying to help her stop the bleeding because she had a wound
to the back of her head.
(sound of water)
Jacob, our son, was 15. And he went on an end-of-school outing. So they
were canoeing on the lake and they stopped for lunch at a boat landing.
It was time to reload the canoes and
continue their outing and so they were gathering the students and couldn't find Jacob and Jeremy.
Then one of the men who was a chaperone on the trip just had an impulse to dive and look
in the water. He was feeling along the bottom and felt a body there. So he pulled up that
body and that was our son Jacob.
(sound of water)
Brandon calls me up at work and says I'm going to check a trot line with
Taylor and Justin. Based on the weather coming in, they probably should have never gone out.
All of a sudden you have these gusts of winds, of up to 30 and 40 mph gusts of wind. Apparently
when they hit one of those whitecaps, it jerked the boat and when it did, it jerked them all
three out. Unfortunately, there was not a kill switch on the boat and the boat kept
going. So, their life jackets that were sitting at their feet went with the boat.
Taylor looked at Brandon, said,
"Are you OK?" "Yes, I'm OK." So, he went to look at Justin. And then when they looked
back, Brandon wasn't there.
(sound of water)
The boys were excited because they would have an extra day of freedom. And so
they go to the lake and they get there, it's a little bit late. The sun is close to setting
but they really want to jump in. I mean, they see that water and they're like, "We want in."
So Connor did a flip off the top of this boat dock. And he landed badly.
He did not resurface. The water's 20 feet deep.
And he doesn't have a life vest on.
It was determined that Jacob was probably underwater at least 10 minutes.
They started CPR on him and he did not breathe until 20 minutes of CPR. He was unconscious,
Took him to the hospital. He was in a deep coma for two months. He lives with
brain injury. I think he's happy but he's certainly very, very limited in what he can
do. I mean, he is alive and he is loved, but this is not what he dreamed of being.
I get a call that Taylor and Justin were in the hospital. There was an accident. And they
said that the boat capsized and they can't find Brandon.
You're so desperate
to find him. But you still have hope. I mean, you're praying for a miracle. And then when
they called the search off that night. That's when it really set in.
That started the first of 29 days of searching for Brandon.
We knew that we had lost our son but we never knew if we were gonna get him back home.
So, every day it was, OK, today's gonna to be the day they're gonna find him.
And then I'd have to look at like the eyes of the guys coming off the lake, after they'd poured their heart and
soul into it and have to look me in the eye and say, "I'm sorry, we didn't find him today."
When I heard the word resuscitate.
I fell
to my knees.
So we, immediately, got in the car
and we drove to Mineral Wells. So, we get there and we learn that Connor was gone.
So just in the course of five hours, one Friday, our happy family of four turned into a broken
a broken family of three.
The water was a place of joy for our family for many years.
I see what I can't see. I see Connor. Under the water and I can't get to him.
That's what I see.
I got this phone call, "Donna, there's been an accident. It's Kali. It's bad."
My assistant came in, tears in her eyes, you know, she said, "Donna's
on the phone, she's hysterical." And Donna couldn't even speak, she was saying, "Kali
was thrown from a boat. You know. She had a terrible accident. I have to get to the
coast NOW." You know, we had a three hour drive to the coast that was just horrible.
The worst drive you could ever have. Cause you think, that when you get there she'd probably
going to be gone. And she was.
So we get to the hospital.
And the nurse greets us at the front door. I knew it wasn't good. They take us into a
room and the doctor comes in, "I'm very sorry, but your daughter didn't make it." And I wailed.
And James just sunk. James chose to see her. I chose not to. I couldn't live with seeing
her like that.
You know, and seeing her
in that state was quite difficult. Cause I went in there to identify her.
She was beautiful
but gone.
(music)
Especially as our children get older, I think the best thing we can do is encourage them to be aware that they are
mortal and that accidents can happen to them. ,
Regardless of I know how to swim
I'm a good swimmer, I'm strong -- we're not stronger than Mother Nature. And that water
is unforgiving.
Something that I think is very important to remember is drowning doesn't always look like drowning.
That many times people who are drowning aren't flailing or yelling.
Drowning is never intentional. But it's almost always preventable.
Look at the situations and not put yourself in something that's beyond your
limits. I mean, obviously, if they would've had their lifejackets, they would have all
survived.
Have your children learn to swim, it could save their life.
Always use a killswitch.
Have your children always wear a lifejacket when they're in the water.
Know the conditions before you go out and you'll stay safe on the water.
Don't assume your kid will be wearing a life vest, make sure they're wearing a life vest.