Grieving parents of tragic Elijah Meldrum call for pool fencing rules overhaul

THE grieving parents of a little boy who drowned in a backyard pool with a faulty gate have pleaded for an overhaul of Victorian pool fencing laws.

Drowned boy's parents speak out

THE grieving parents of a little boy who drowned in a backyard pool with a faulty gate have pleaded for an overhaul of Victorian pool fencing laws.

Lisa Carter and Craig Meldrum do not want two-year-old Elijah’s death — or the drowning deaths of 26 other Aussie toddlers in the past year — to be in vain.

“This is our children’s lives — they are our world and we need to protect them,” Ms Carter said. “How many children have to die, how many families have to be broken, before the State Government does something?”

The 23-year-old mother of two said now was the time for the Government to act, as summer kicks in with a heat blast across Victoria today.

She called on the Andrews Government to introduce:

A STATEWIDE pool register with annual inspections to ­ensure fencing is compliant;

HEFTY fines for pool owners who don’t comply;

REAL estate agent mandatory safety checks at three-monthly inspections of rental properties that have a pools and/or a spa;

FREE or subsidised swimming lessons for under-5s from low-income families.

Ms Carter said she was “disgusted” to hear Victoria did not have a pool register like Queensland, NSW and WA.

Elijah Meldrum died in a drowning tragedy. Picture: Supplied

In those states, pools are recorded by authorities who inspect them for compliance every few years. Queensland residents face fines of up to $2356 if they don’t register their pools.

After several high-profile pool drownings in 2013, then planning minister and now Opposition Leader Matthew Guy said the Government “couldn’t stand by any longer” and committed to following in the footsteps of other states. Two years, a change of government, and dozens of drowning deaths in backyard pools later, and the policy is still no closer.

In Victoria, the onus is on the owner of the property to ensure pool fencing meets the Australian standard. Understaffed councils do some inspections, but it often takes a tragedy before a faulty gate or poor fencing is checked.

“When I had to say goodbye, I hugged him and said I was sorry that I wasn’t there. I felt like I had failed as a mum. I was meant to protect him.”

“Pool owners need to be held accountable,” Ms Carter said. In her son’s case, would-be tenants raised concerns over the faulty pool gate on the Melton South rental property up to three years earlier.

Letting agents Barry Plant claim they never received any official complaints.

Following Elijah’s death on September 21 and a subsequent council investigation, the gate was repaired.

Ms Carter said she had not had an apology or condolence message from the house owner or real estate agent.

Child safety groups, aquatic industry leaders and the state’s lifesavers have thrown their support behind the push to reduce backyard pool deaths.

Kidsafe Victoria project manager Jason Chambers said evidence suggests a majority of pool drowning deaths are a result of fencing that is noncompliant.

“One death is too many. It is time the government stands up and makes a change,” he said.

Swimming Pool and Spa Association of Victoria (SPASA) chief executive Brendan Watkins said there were almost 200,000 backyard pools across the state and that a register would ensure all owners kept them up to standard.

“There is no record of the location of private swimming pools and spas in Victoria — this makes enforcement of safety regulations extremely difficult, if not impossible,” he said.

Lifesaving Victoria spokesman Paul Shannon agreed a register would result in improved compliance of barriers.

Planning Minister Dick Wynne wouldn’t commit or rule out a register.

“The previous Liberal planning minister talked up the need for a pool fence register but, like a lot of Victoria’s long-term planning needs, failed to act,” he said.

“My office has been meeting with stakeholders to decide the best way to move forward on improving backyard pool safety.”

Shadow Planning Minister David Davis wouldn’t say whether the Opposition supported a pool safety register.

Mr Meldrum said drownings can happen “so easily, so quickly” and urged other parents to be careful this summer.

“We just want to do anything we possibly can to ensure this doesn’t happen to anyone else,” Mr Meldrum said.

After being up all night with her son who was unwell, a tired Ms Carter said she laid down to catch up on some sleep while he was napping.

They were in the same bedroom and she had shut the door behind her.

But she did not hear him rouse, and being his usual adventurous self, he pulled his bike towards the door, standing on it to reach the knob and make his escape.

“I woke up and realised he wasn’t there and the house was quiet,” she said. “I jumped out of bed and I was calling out for him. I was frantically looking for him around the house.”

Ms Carter had one message for everyone this summer: “Water can be fun, but it’s also a killer.”

Elijah was just two when he drowned in a backyard pool.

‘THE DAY WE LOST ELIJAH’

IT’S a day Lisa Carter has lived over and over again in her mind — day and night.

And it is a day she knows will haunt her for the rest of her life.

In her eyes, September 21, 2015, is the day she failed to protect her two-year-old son.

It is the day little Elijah’s adventurous self saw him lost in a splash of a second.

Tears roll down Ms Carter’s cheeks as she recalls the moment her heart stopped when she saw her beautiful blue-eyed boy floating in the pool.

From plucking his limp body from the water to desperately trying to revive him on the kitchen floor as she called for an ambulance, it was any mother’s worst nightmare.

“I was screaming the place down,” Ms Carter, 23, said. “I put him softly down on the kitchen floor and tried CPR but I didn’t know how to do it. I felt so helpless.

“I was telling him to ‘please wake up, mummy is here’.”

When ambulance officers arrived and vigorously tried to save his life, she looked on in horror as they pumped her baby boy’s chest.

It was too late. He was gone ... forever.

Ms Carter says she now has to live with the guilt of not being able to protect her son.

“I’m going to blame myself for the rest of my life,” she said.

“When I had to say goodbye, I hugged him and said I was sorry that I wasn’t there. I felt like I had failed as a mum. I was meant to protect him.”

She said her loss and pain had been exaggerated by the hurtful comments made from people who don’t even know her.

“When people hear of a drowning, they straight away judge you as a parent,” she said.

“I loved my little boy. It was just me and him. He was my world. I’m so lost. I don’t know what to do with myself. He was my motivation to get up in the morning.”

Home videos of her son, with his curly blonde locks and cheeky smile, are, for now, too hard for her to watch.

As she flicks through a family photo album, she admires how he was “just perfect” and “the most beautiful boy ever”.

In her bedroom each night, she lights candles surrounding a makeshift shrine featuring toys, a teddy and pictures of her boy, talking to him, saying goodnight, as if he was there.

Visits to the cemetery are frequent. Some days she will sit by his grave for hours where she thinks of the cherished memories they shared in his short life and what he could have been or looked like when he grew up.

But most of all she punishes herself by going through the painstaking scenarios of what she could have done differently that tragic day.

“I’m just a broken person,” she said. “I would not wish this pain upon anyone else.”

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