Publications
Partners
Here is why they need your support:
It’s a sight that will haunt her for the rest of her life: her little girl lying face down in the pool in her purple Keedo top, her beautiful dark curls floating in the water.
“I can’t get the image out of my head – that purple top, that beautiful hair,” Traci (22) says. “It was the worst feeling. This was meant to be a special day. We were going to teach Caitlin how to swim.”
The young mother was just weeks away from qualifying as a paramedic and was looking forward to a career helping others. Little did she know she would be performing her first resuscitation on the most precious person in her life…
Where’s Caitlin?
Traci and her family were gathered at their Kuils River, Cape Town, home for an afternoon of fun around the pool. Then someone shouted the two words that would change things forever: “Where’s Caitlin?”
Traci felt panic set in immediately. Her two-year-old was a real livewire – curious and adventurous, always laughing and talking. She suddenly realised her daughter had been quiet for too long.
Her eyes flew to the sliding door that led to the pool. It was open – and Traci felt her heart drop to her stomach when she realised the pool net hadn’t been replaced. “I ran out and saw my baby floating face down,” she says.
She was clinically dead.
Image: Caitlin in Netcare Hospital in Kuils River
Traci leapt into the pool, grabbed her child and passed her to Caitlin’s father, Justin, who started CPR with the help of Traci’s father.
Her paramedic experience told Traci her daughter was in big trouble. “All I saw were fixed, dilated pupils. No breathing. No pulse. I knew she was clinically dead.”
She ran into the house and called an ambulance but couldn’t bring herself to return to the scene by the pool. “I knew what I would see. I couldn’t bear it. I was the paramedic, I was supposed to be saving lives and this was happening to me… I was 22 years old and I was losing my child.”
Hoping beyond hope
Traci was galvanised into action by her mom, who yelled at her to help with the CPR. “Chest compressions and back slaps – I just knew I had to do chest compression and back slaps. I was crying. I was screaming.
There was no point.
“I’d worked out on the roads. CPR doesn’t have a very high success rate. I have yet to witness a successful resuscitation.”
She continued to administer CPR while Caitlin was rushed to Netcare Hospital in Kuils River, all the while thinking it was a waste of time.
At the hospital a medical team took over while the family consoled each other and prayed for a miracle. After what seemed like forever, a nurse came and spoke the words Traci never thought she’d hear: “We’ve got blood pressure and a pulse.”
“I can’t believe it!” she yelled. “I don’t believe you! I need to see that monitor myself.”
Trials and joys
Seeing a paediatrician inserting a tube down Caitlin’s throat and hearing the beep of the monitor finally calmed Traci down.
“From that moment I knew this was God’s work,” she says. “My faith was restored – I didn’t think CPR could really work until then.”
Caitlin was still a very sick little girl. Doctors followed the first step of treatment for near-drowning patients – therapeutic hypothermia, which involves reducing the body’s core temperature to slow down certain processes, such as brain swelling.
“It was nerve-wracking,” Traci says. She knew if the process of rewarming Caitlin’s body wasn’t done correctly, there would be an increased risk of seizures.
Caitlin was a little fighter and survived the treatment. But being starved of oxygen for so long took its toll on the toddler and she was left with quadriplegic dipleasia, a severe form of cerebral palsy.
She cannot hold her head up properly, sit or crawl, nor can she eat solid food or speak. But she communicates through baby language and by moving her eyes, Traci says, and she knows exactly what her little girl wants.
Caitlin has speech and occupational therapy every week where her communication skills and feeding ability are prioritised. For now she receives nourishment via a tube in her stomach.
Image: Caitlin celebrating her second birthday with mom, Traci and dad, Justin
Caitlin 'experienced something during death’
Traci says Caitlin experiences the terrible twos like any other kid. One minute she’s laughing, the next she’s crying and throwing tantrums. But she isn’t like other kids – and she isn’t like she was before the accident either.
She “experienced something” during in the minutes she was clinically dead, her loved ones say.
“She’s a different person. She died that day and was reborn in an altered spirit. I don’t know what God’s plan is but it’s amazing how your mind and body adjust. I don’t long for the old Caitlin.”
The Caitlin Isabella Foundation
Life may have its challenges but Traci knows how fortunate she is to still have her daughter. “Not everyone is as lucky as I am,” she says. “It’s time to give back.”
Traci decided to share her daughter’s story by forming a growing network of nurses, therapists and families living with children who have various physical or developmental challenges.
Based within the Kuils River community, the Cailtin Isabella Foundation (CIF) recently led a Knock-Knock campaign that provided door-to-door training on the importance of CPR. Educating the community in life-saving skills is one of the main pillars of the CIF.
“The CIF opens up a world of shared experiences and knowledge that helps families newly affected by paediatric emergencies to optimise their transition into their new lifestyle of raising a special needs child,” Traci explains.
As for Caitlin, the family is taking things one day at a time. “We believe in giving all we can as it may determine her quality of life,” Traci says. “We don’t know how far she will progress, but we work on it every day.”
Caitlin has been making great progress. Check out how well she is doing:
Have you had a near-death experience or do know someone who has? Mail us here.
Follow Women24 on Twitter or like us on Facebook.
