Niel

Karin, mother of Niel

Location: Durban, South Africa

E-Mail: karins@goba.co.za

Phone:  +27785178821

Where the accident happened: Swimming Pool

Date of Accident:  June 19, 1999

Age at time of accident:  14 months

Therapies tried:

Niel's Story:

It was a cold wintry day, but the sun was shining outside. My fourteen month-old son, Niel, woke up at 6:30 and decided that it was time to play.  I tried to convince him that we should still be asleep, but after fifteen minutes of intense struggling, he got off the bed. I heard him rattling one of the doors in the hall.

When it got quiet I got up and started to look for him. We have a big house, so I first searched all the bedrooms, then worked my way through the rest of the house.

As I entered the kitchen I saw that the backdoor was open! I realised that one of our dogs must have jumped up, pushed down the door handle and opened the door. Immediately I thought about the swimming pool –water is such an attraction for toddlers! Even with the fence around – one never could be careful enough.

Without checking first, I started to run, ripping off my clothes and screamed for my husband. As I ran outside I saw my little boy floating peacefully facedown in our pool!

I jumped in and turned him over –his lips were blue and his eyes half open.  I started CPR immediately and as I reached my husband, I handed Niel to him, so that I could pull on a sweater.

My husband was in such shock, that all he said was “It’s to late…. He’s dead…. It’s to late.”

We raced to the hospital. In the car Niel vomited water while I was applying CPR and I noticed that his lip colour had changed slightly. When we reached the hospital, I ran holding Niel, into the Med24; an alert doctor summed up the situation and ran with me to the emergency room. He asked me what happened as he started resuscitation. Niel was so cold and I kept on rubbing him and just praying ”Wake up Niel. Wake up!”  Niel threw up more water and we were asked to step outside to wait.

It took ten minutes before his heart started beating again and twenty-five minutes before he made an attempt to breathe. They placed him on a ventilator for three days.

On the fourth day they tried to wean him from the machine and gently to wake him at the same time. He started hyperventilating, so the doctors decided to sedate him with morphine and dormicume for one more day.

The next day he was weaned off the machine and woke up. His EEG showed no epilepsy patterns, but it showed results to that of a person in deep sleep; we believe that this was because of all the medication. His brain injury is in the Basal Ganglia areas. The Basal Ganglia controls motoring skills and sleeping pattern.

Niel was hospitalised for a week and two days, and was allowed home on Monday, 28 June 1999. Two days later, he started to vomit intermittently and by Friday we had to race him to the hospital again. This time Niel was suffering from acute dehydration and had dropped in weight from 11,5kg to just under 9kg. He was put on a drip and we were told to go home to get some sleep; the hospital would take good care of our baby.

The next day, Saturday, we were pleased to see that he had improved and we even celebrated my mother’s birthday next to Niel’s hospital bed.

In the early morning hours of Sunday we woke to the sound of the telephone ringing. It was the hospital – they had given Niel too much electrolysis, which had caused brain swelling and this in turn caused his blood pressure to rise which could lead to either kidney failure or a stroke.

He was treated with care and love, I made sure of that, but it took another week and a half before he was finally allowed to come home with us.

It’s been 4 years, with extensive therapy.



Karin, mother of Niel