Jasper Gregory's family had not long returned to their Belmont North home after grocery shopping when the 16-month-old boy went unusually quiet.
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Seconds later, there were cries for help - first from Jasper's seven-year-old sister Sunny and then from their mother Richelle Gregory as she raced her young son's lifeless body out the front door and to her neighbour, a nurse who was watering the garden.
Ms Gregory says the heroics of Carolyn Heming "completely and utterly" saved the life of Jasper, a little boy with Down syndrome who had crawled into the bathroom and became stuck face-down in a bucket that had been collecting shower water for plants around the home.
Ms Heming, a veteran nurse who works as a midwife at Newcastle Private Hospital, performed CPR on Jasper - who was unconscious, unresponsive and not breathing - for more than 10 minutes until he began to make small crying sounds just as paramedics arrived.
The child spent two nights in hospital and has fully recovered.
Ms Gregory described him as being back to his "good old normal mischievous self".
But the mother of four says the ordeal has reinforced two things - the importance of CPR training and being as diligent as possible when it comes to dangers for children, even if you think you've completely baby-proofed a home.
Despite having had CPR training through her job as a TAFE teacher, Ms Gregory told the Newcastle Herald her instinct was to run to Ms Heming for help.
She said the family had not long arrived home from grocery shopping on Monday afternoon when her daughter called from the bathroom: "Jasper's in the water, Jasper's in the water, he won't sit up".
"He must have put his hands and face in the water and not been able to lift himself back up and Sunny's found him draped in the water and pulled him out," Ms Gregory said of her son, who started crawling a few weeks ago and enjoys blowing raspberries in water.
"When I ran into the bathroom I found him collapsed in half, over himself so his head was between his knees on the floor.
"I picked him up and he was blue, eyes open, non-responsive, not breathing - no sign of life.
"When I [later] said to Sunny 'why did you go into the bathroom?' She said 'I just wanted to check Jasper because he had gone quiet'. The poignancy of that to me is that drowning is silent, just silent."
Ms Heming, who spent a decade working in Intensive Care, said the incident was the most terrifying experience of her life.
"Out of the corner of my eye I could see this really floppy baby in her arms. I knew who it was, it was Jasper," she said.
"She put him in my arms and he was so floppy - his little head flopped back and he was just blue and all his little body was white and I just thought 'oh my god, he's in so much trouble'. I thought no matter what I do I don't think he's going to survive.
"I suppose about a minute before the ambulance arrived I could hear his little heart beating, but he still wasn't breathing and he still wasn't conscious.
"Then he starting crying and that was the best thing."
Ms Heming applauded the "great presence of mind and action" of Jasper's sister Sunny, saying she "certainly has contributed to his amazing outcome".
"I've seen some very poor outcomes, parents losing babies," she said.
"My heart just sank in my chest when I saw his little head."
Jasper's story came the same week that Royal Life Saving Australia issued a fresh warning for people to be extra careful around water in the lead-up to Australia Day, noting its research showed that the risk of drowning doubled on public holidays.
Forty-four people have drowned across Australia between December 1 and January 21, according to the latest Royal Life Saving figures.
Of the deaths so far this summer, 89 per cent have been men. Forty-three per cent of people have been aged between 35 and 64.
The Newcastle Herald reported in September that the organisations' annual National Drowning Report showed that 98 people died from drowning in NSW in 2018/19 - down one per cent on the previous 12 months.
The data showed that six of those deaths occurred in Newcastle, Port Stephens, Lake Macquarie or the Hunter Valley - two fewer than in 2017/18.
There were five fatal drownings in the region in 2016/17, 12 in 2015/16 and 15 in 2014/15, according to the figures.
"Our message is simple. Love the water. Enjoy the water. Do it safely," Royal Life Saving's national operations manager Craig Roberts said this week.
"We want everyone to go out and have fun, but people need to be aware of the risks and take the necessary precautions to keep themselves and their mates safe. Drowning is wholly preventable."
Meanwhile, Ms Gregory has started a Go Fund Me page to raise money to put on a free CPR course with Hunter Heart Safe because of "how critically important it is to know what to do".
She says she hopes to get 100 participants sign up for the course by Easter.
And the importance of water safety is a message she wants to spread.
Ms Gregory said the family had been making an effort to conserve more water since camping on the south coast during the recent holiday period and seeing the impact that a lack of water was having.
But the bucket in the shower - a collapsible plastic vessel of the kind commonly used to take things to the beach - nearly caused a tragedy.
"We're so diligent and vigilant with pools," she said.
"The irony that the one thing he actually got in trouble with, I had not even considered.
"Stairs, medications, plastic bags, things he can pull on himself, house plants, dog food, the dog's water bowl, the pet door - all of these other things I've been going around and considering and looking at how we can re-proof ourselves and the one thing that had completely not even been on my radar was that bucket of water.
"It's just one of those incredible situations that I will live with forever.
"I just hope that if anything other than Jasper's miraculous survival and him being here with us - his normal, cheeky, healthy self - comes from this, I hope if anyone else has this risk in their home they do something about it."
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