Quietly sitting on an idilic beach of sweeping sands, calm cool waters and children contently playing.
This sounds like the perfect setting doesn’t it? And this was our day yesterday until the our hearts sank and we were to experience one of the worst fifteen minutes of our lives!
We were all trying to build some super duper sandcastles and getting quite engrossed with the jobs we each had.
Number four asked to go and get some water for the moat and as there was a little pool that had collected in the sand a couple of metres from where we were sitting we were more than happy for him to fill his bucket and come back.
A couple of minutes later I looked up to realise he was no longer there!
I calmly walked with my husband down to the sea I the hope that he had wandered down there to collect the water.
Both of us separated into different directions to scour the beach and then panic set in as he was nowhere to be seen.
It was like looking for a needle in a haystack with hoards of people covering the beach and hundreds of little boys fitting the same description of our precious little boy.
I’m really not one to panic when the children wander off normally but I have never experienced this sick feeling in the pit of my stomach that I couldn’t shake.
My husband ran off to find a lifeguard while my mind was still wizzing around at one hundred miles an hour.
With the worry of the five people that had so tragically been taken by the sea in Camber Sands firmly at the forefront I my mind I was lost with what to do.
After about ten minutes the lifeguard’s radio went and he had been found.
He must have lost his bearings when he went to walk back up the beach and found a lady that kindly bought him back to the lifeguard hut for us.
There he was sitting calmly, without a worry in the world which was a far cry from how I was feeling.
I had burst into tears at the shear relief of seeing his little face, something I feared I had never seen again.
It was a real reminder that we should never get complacent of the huge dangers the sea can bring and how it could have been such a different outcome.
My stomach was in knots reading this, I hope you’ve settled now. The feeling when they vanish is bad enough but it being near water makes it so much worse. My worst nightmare 🙁
Mine have often wandered but your right mixed with the sea fear set in a lot quicker! X
So very true! I can imagine the way you felt. It’s every mums worst nightmare.
It really is! Something I don’t want to go through again x
Gosh, you got me welling up! How scary for you and a reminder for me to hug my lil one a bit tighter tonight xxx
Oh no so sorry! It really does make you realise how precious they really are x
so glad that things worked out for you, gosh what a scare!
Thank you, it really was a worrying time! X
That was always my fear when my boys were little and prone to wandering off! I dressed them the same, so if the worst happened I could say ” he was dressed just like this only bigger/ smaller”.
This was where my husband floundered as he couldn’t remember for the life of him what he was wearing!
They do love to scare us don’t they! X