9:14am Thursday 28th August 2008
By Lucy Clark
WITH his big grin, striking blond hair and bright blue eyes, Kailin Tucker won over the hearts of everyone he met.
The happy-go-lucky toddler was the apple of his mum's eye, his cheeky mischief always making people laugh.
But tragedy struck the Tucker family when little Kailin was found face down in his grandmother's garden pond.
To add to the family's grief Kailin regained a heartbeat hours after being pronounced dead, but then died three days later.
Mum Sasha has paid tribute to the 16-month-old following the accident that happened as she was making plans for his christening.
Sasha, 20, said: "Kailin was a really happy boy. He loved life. He was a brilliant baby - he was really good and never cried. You only had to meet him once and you were in love with him."
Kailin was found in the 15ft wide pond at his grandmother Michelle Tucker's house in Winchester Road, Southampton. He had been playing with his cousin Callum, who is one month older.
Speaking of the moment she found her son in the pond, Sasha said: "They had had baths and were in their pyjamas playing in the garden.
"They never went near the pond because they were scared of the water.
"I came to the house for about a minute because we were planning Kailin's christening. Then Callum came in and was whinging, so I worried. I went outside and couldn't find him straight away, then I saw him. He was just face down in the water."
"I pulled him out and handed him to my brother Shawn, but he couldn't get any water out. The only thing I thought to do was run out into the street with him and shout for help. A man got his wife, who was a doctor, and she brought up quite a lot of water."
Kailin was then taken by ambulance to Southampton General Hospital where efforts were made to resuscitate him, but he was pronounced dead. He was being given a bath when, suddenly, his pulse returned.
For the next three days he remained unconscious and on a ventilator in the Paediatric Intensive Care Unit.
Sadly, his condition deteriorated and he was pronounced brain dead on August 2.
Sasha, a shop assistant at One Stop in Bassett, said: "I didn't cope well. Your kids are your life. I didn't know what to feel, I just wanted to hold him, he was my baby. It didn't feel real."
She has had her son's full name - Kailin Rory Tucker - and a picture of his favourite children's character, Iggle Piggle from In The Night Garden, tattooed on her arm in his memory.
Sasha, who is separated from Kailin's father, is staying at her mum's house as she is too distressed to go home to her flat in Shirley Towers. "I'm finding it hard to go home at the moment as Kailin's stuff is everywhere. It was just me and him living there."
Since the accident, Michelle, 42, has had the pond filled in. She said: "I didn't fill in the pond before because we are trying to move house. After everything that's happened, it just had to be filled in. All we kept seeing was Kailin out there - it was horrible. I have got to live with that for the rest of my life."
Sasha added: "You can't watch kids 24 hours a day, it's just impossible. They played out there all the time and never went near the pond."
Friends and family released 50 balloons at Kailin's funeral in Hollybrook Cemetery.
An inquest into the tragedy on July 30 has been opened and adjourned.
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