A Texas woman has shared footage of her young son practicing swimming, just four weeks before he drowned in the most heartbreaking circumstances.
“Bodhi was terrified of the pool when he was little,” Heaven Kervin from New Caney told Newsweek. “He would cling to me, refusing to go near the water.”
Kervin said she “didn’t know much about water safety” back then, so thought little of buying her son some puddle jumpers, a type of swimming aid designed to help children stay afloat in water.
“Suddenly, he felt brave and independent, like he could do it on his own,” Kervin said. “We thought we were doing the right thing. We had no idea how dangerous those floatation devices could be.”
The video Kervin posted to her TikTok @the.kervin.family shows Bodhi in the water with his puddle jumpers on. He appears happy and confident in the pool but, as his mom would come to realize just a few weeks later, these floatation devices had given her son a “false sense of security” when it came to being in the water.
It would lead to tragedy just a few weeks later on June 11, 2022.
“I was house-sitting for a family member in what we believed was a childproof home,” Kervin said. “My son was incredibly smart, and the only lock that ever truly kept him inside was a pressure-mounted one. They had secured every door—except one.”
“That morning, around 6 a.m., both of my children—Bodhi, who was three, and Audrey, just 18 months old—managed to slip outside. The dog started barking, and I woke up. When I saw the open door, I ran outside. Audrey was standing at the edge of the pool. Bodhi was at the bottom.”
Kervin pulled her son out of the water and performed CPR until the EMS arrived.
“We got his heartbeat back,” she said. “I truly believed we had a chance. But the damage was too much. We spent nine days in the hospital.”
Bodhi had always dreamed of growing up to become a firefighter and save lives. In that spirit, Kervin opted to donate his organs.
“He saved three lives,” she said.
An estimated 4,000 people die from unintentional drowning in the U.S. each year, equating to an average of 11 drowning deaths per day, according to the American Red Cross. Drowning is the number one cause of death for children aged 1 to 4.
Today, Kervin travels across Texas teaching water safety to caregivers and children in Bodhi’s honor through the Judah Brown Project.
“I teach about the dangers of puddle jumpers, the importance of survival swim lessons, multiple layers of protection, and how easily drowning can happen—even in homes that feel safe,” she said.
Kervin is especially concerned at the use of puddle jumpers and other floatation devices among young children.
“While they seem like a helpful tool, they actually teach children the muscle memory to stay vertical in the water—the exact position they drown in,” she said.
“Instead of learning to float on their backs or swim to safety, kids begin to associate water with a false sense of security and the instinct to have muscle memory in the drowning position.”
It’s a stance firmly supported by the National Drowning Prevention Alliance.
“Flotation devices of any kind should never be used as a swim aid,” they say. “Instead, children should learn to float on their backs and then learn survival swim techniques, as well as always having one-on-one touch supervision (a parent or adult never being outside of an arm’s reach of a non-swimmer) in and around the water.”
Kervin believes that is only the start of the changes needed though.
“Texas has incredibly loose regulations around pool safety. Many pools remain unfenced, with no self-latching gates or alarms,” she said. “There are no statewide laws requiring barriers for residential pools, and it leaves children incredibly vulnerable.”
Sharing Bodhi’s story and reliving the trauma of what happened has been difficult for Kervin to bear, but necessary.
“I couldn’t save my son, but maybe I can help save someone else’s,” she said. “My hope is that people walk away from my videos not just emotional, but empowered, ready to take action to protect their kids before tragedy has a chance to happen.”
She added: “I don’t want another family to know mine and my family’s pain. Bodhi’s third anniversary has passed since his drowning though, and it has not faded, I don’t believe it ever will.”
The post Mom Captures Toddler Learning To Swim, Not Knowing in 4 Weeks He’d Be Gone appeared first on Newsweek.
