She explained that Norm and his mate rushed off to find Matilda, and his friend spotted the two-year-old underwater in the pool.
“At this point she’d been under for about 20 seconds,” Jess said.
“His mate dived in, got her. She was still conscious. She was vomiting, she had foam coming out of her mouth.”
The couple were afraid of "secondary drowning" and took Matilda to hospital to get checked over.
“Norm thought she might have just been napping and they were told, ‘Take her to emergency straight away!’ because secondary drowning, where’s there’s water on the lungs, is one of the biggest killers when it comes to children. You can still drown three days after you’ve been under the water.”
Jess became emotional as she recalled the horrific phone call from Norm.
“Just to think of her underwater and that she was alone, it’s just something you don’t want to hear,” Jess said.
While Matilda stayed in hospital for observation she appears to be OK after the incident.
Jess revealed that Norm was almost inconsolable after the mishap, but she stressed that it could have happened to anyone.
“He feels so terrible,” she said. “He just did not forgive himself.”