My Toddler Son Almost Died Because of a Common Bathroom Item — Here’s What Happened

A mom faced every parent’s biggest fear when her 2-year-old son nearly passed away in the family’s bathroom. The culprit was a simple bathroom object. In the hopes to prevent a tragedy, she told her story and explained why the item should be locked away when kids are around.

The child’s 4-year-old brother helped save him.

In a post shared on the Instagram page of Tiny Hearts, a child safety organization founded by a former paramedic, a mom anonymously told the story of how her toddler son, Archie, almost drowned in the family’s bathtub in the middle of the night. “At 4am in the morning our 4-year-old son came running down to our bedroom shouting that his brother was in the bath and needed urgent help,” she wrote. “We found our cheeky, adventurous 2-year-old in the bath fully clothed with nappy and everything on.”

The mom went on to explain how the toddler had gotten himself into the dangerous, almost fatal, situation. Firstly he climbed on a stool, something the mom emphasized he had never done before, and secondly he took the bath plug and plugged it in. As he then let the tap water flow, he found himself being overwhelmed by water, with the entire bathroom starting to flood. Fortunately to the parents, their second child knew how to act when he found his younger brother in distress.

“If our 4-year-old hadn’t of woken up I can’t even think about what we may have woken up to,” she said.

The family has always done everything to assure a safe environment, but it wasn’t enough to prevent the incident.

Archie’s mom also made sure to point out that they had different security measures in place in order to prevent various types of accidents involving her small children. But the bath plug, which she pinpointed as the culprit, had never crossed her mind as a possible danger, the reason why she decided to share this story. Immediately after what happened, she took the step of putting a lock on the bathroom door and putting the plug itself completely out of reach of the kids by locking it inside a cupboard.

“I hope this story can educate other parents because honestly I consider myself to be REALLY on top of child safety: every cupboard is locked, every piece of furniture is anchored or mounted to the wall and every effort is taken to ensure the safety of our kids at all time but I honestly just never thought of locking away the plug,” she admitted.

Archie is one of the lucky ones.

In the United States, more children aged 1 to 4 die from drowning than any other cause of death, with an average of 11 deaths by drowning per day. Nonfatal drownings amount to 22 per day and can result in long-term health problems, such as brain damage, and nearly 40% of drownings require hospitalization. Thankfully in this case, things turned out well for Archie, who was checked by medical professionals and is doing fine.

How to keep bathrooms safe for kids:

There are a few things that can be done in order to make bathrooms a more risk-free environment for children:

• Avoid leaving your child unattended, even if for a brief moment such as answering your phone. It only takes a few seconds for an accident to happen;
• Make sure the water is completely drained out of your bathtub before leaving the room, as young children can drown in as little as an inch or two of water;
• Get a baby gate to prevent children from walking in to the bathroom unattended;
• Bathe babies in the sink or in a bathtub adapter to ensure they don’t roll over onto their stomach or completely submerge themselves;
• Get a scald guard, as 95% of infant burns happen while bathing with running tap water.

Parents who have multiple children often rely on the older siblings to help out with the youngest in the family, especially when it comes to babysitting. However, your older kids shouldn’t babysit their siblings because of a few reasons.