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In 2008 TRS Mentor Coach Steve Greathouse decided it was time to do something to reduce the number of children who drown each year in Arizona swimming pools. Since nearly all of the drowning incidents happen in pools without pool alarms, child specifics fencing, or other safety features. Steve figured that sponsoring charity fund raising could facilitate repairs and additions to hundreds of swimming pools throughout the state. The rest of the TRS team decided that this is a great idea too.
TRS Mentor Coaches Steve Greathouse, Joe Chiappetta, Luis Sharpe and several others will begin researching vendors for acquiring the safety equipment and scheduling fund raising projects to pay for purchases and installations. An advertising campaign will identify pools in need of our help and reach out to the owners. To participate go to the blog and forum.
All my life I dreamed of having a son to spend time with, to show him how to work on cars, and to teach him how to be a man. God blessed me with two sons. The oldest my wife and I named after my father and me, Steven Lee, and the youngest we named Dylan James. Having two sons to mentor made me so proud. I spent a lot of time planning for the future, but on April 24th, 2002, all of that changed. The future my sons and I had together was stripped from us in one fell swoop.
That evening, my wife was making dinner for her three children from a previous marriage as well as the three kids we had together. I was out working, and my mother was in her room. I believe that Dylan went out the broken side door that led to our back yard pool. Steven being the big brother tried to stop him. Dylan fell in the pool. When Steven tried to help him, he fell in himself. After five or ten minutes my wife was done with dinner, and went looking for all of the kids so they could eat. She looked all over the house, and the last room she looked in was the girls' room. As she glanced out the window she saw our boys floating in the pool.
As I came back to the house, I found my wife running out of the front door holding my son Dylan and yelling at me,"What did you do to my babies!" I saw Dylan was all wet, and I ran in the house to look for my other son. My mother was running out of the back yard holding Steven. Both kids were limp with no life left in them. I called 911 for help. It seemed like an hour before the Fire Department showed up, however it was only a few minutes.
They started C.P.R. and put my boys in an Air Vac Unit.That was the last time I saw my boys before they were at the morgue. The man at the morgue asked me to come with him into the back to see something. As I went into the room I saw my boys lying on a table. They had stitches the size of a piece of pencil lead that went from ear to ear. He asked me if I wanted to put hats on them. I had to because no one needed to see what I saw.
None of what occurred truly hit me until my boys were being lowered into the ground. As I realized I would never see them again, I lost it. I got up, dropped my wife's' hand, and walked away. I cried as I left. I didn't want anyone to see me cry. I needed to be the strong one for my family. After that, all of my wife's family looked at me like I was a heartless bastard, but that was not the case. My mind blocked it out, and I never got help. I pushed my family away so I wouldn't get hurt again.My wife couldn't take that and left with our kids. I haven't seen them since. I am now divorced and fighting to see my kids. I'm telling my story to help open the eyes of people who don't think this could happen to them. I thought the same thing, but I was wrong.
Steve Greathouse
2008
NATIONWIDE POOLS
