“How can anyone bear this twice?”

At home, install safety covers, pool alarms and barriers around your pool or hot tub that enclose the entire area. Gates should be self-closing and the latches should be out of reach for small children.

Make sure to remove access ladders and secure the safety cover on above-ground or inflatable pools. Keep pool toys out of sight so they don’t attract young children.

For more information, visit The American Red Cross, www.redcross.org/prepare/disaster/water-safety

Source: The American Red Cross

Leading Causes of Death for age 1-4

Drowning is the second-leading cause of death for children age 1 to 4 and killed 436 in 2010.

Birth defects 507

Drowning 436

Malignant tumor 346

Motor vehicle 343

Source: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Crouched over the body of his son, pumping his frail chest, blowing breaths into his little mouth, Jason Martin thought: Not again.

Eleven years ago, Martin’s wife had discovered their infant daughter, Bristol, face-down and blue in her crib the morning after Easter. Now, the pastor was giving CPR to his 2-year-old son, Knox, his body wet from the Cobb County family’s brand new pool.

“I was thinking with him on the floor, ‘How can this happen again? How can anyone bear this twice?’” said Martin, lead pastor of the Journey Church of Hiram.

“God uses the most difficult times in our lives to build, shape and form us for his purpose, and I believe all those things. But at some point you go, ‘OK God, I have been formed enough through hardship.’”

A pastor’s wife, but not a Christian

When Bristol died of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, Tera Martin’s body was still producing milk, but she no longer had a child to feed. She fell into a severe depression, angry all the time — at God and at her husband for appearing to move on more easily from the baby’s death.

She realized she didn’t have a relationship with God. She knew Bible stories and how to act the part of a preacher’s wife, but not how to rely on God in times of suffering.

“I learned how to be angry with God, that his shoulders were big enough to handle me to be angry with Him, and he still forgave me and understood my pain,” she said.

As much as they hurt, the Martins were determined not to retreat from life, not to let fear cripple them. When their next child was born about a year after Bristol’s death, the hospital tried to send them home with monitors and alarms to guard against SIDS. But they said no, their children belong to God, and he will take care of them.

Knox, their youngest, knew no fear. He was joyful, good at entertaining himself and always in search of adventure — just the characteristics Jason and Tera try to foster in all their their children.

On Saturday, June 1, Jason and Tera were watching a movie in the living room, their backs to the bank of windows that looks out over the back yard. All the kids played in the pool until it was time to come inside. Fifteen-year-old Athan, brought Knox in, helped him dry off and changed him into his diaper.

A few minutes later, when Tera asked, “Where’s Knox?” she expected to find him in the playroom, or hanging out on the stairs. She hadn’t noticed that the door to the back yard was ajar or that the ladder was still hanging from the side of the pool.

‘I’m sorry! I’m sorry!’

As the eldest, Athan looked out for his siblings. While others looked for his brother in the house, he checked the back yard.

He ran in with Knox in his arms, screaming, “I’m sorry! I’m sorry!”

While Jason administered CPR, Athan called 911 on the house phone while Tera dialed on her cell.

Jason rode with Knox to the hospital, but Athan stayed behind with his mother and siblings. He laid in bed with his mom and prayed for her, saying all the things an adult would say.

“His response was heroic,” Jason said. “He did everything a 15 year old could do.”

His parents know he feels responsible for Knox’s death.

“He’s saying all right things, and he has cried and grieved, but I think he has a lot more to do,” Jason said. “He’s a strong and responsible young man, and I think more than anything he feels has to be strong for us.”

Jason said that soon, he plans to walk Athan through everything he experienced that day, so he can say to God whatever he needs to say, and work through any feelings of guilt.

“I think he’s doing as well as could be expected, having to endure what he did.”

Keeping the pool

With little children, with swimming pools, tragedy strikes in an eye-blink. Paramedics said Knox’s body temperature was still 98.7 degrees; the water that had robbed him of breath had had no time to rob him of warmth.

After leaving the hospital, Jason’s first instinct was to come home and take an ax to the pool. But he and Tera have decided to keep it, and teach their 4-year-old how to swim.

Even now, they don’t want their children to fear a thing.

Tera, who says Bristol’s death transformed her into a Christian, is better able to cope with her anger this time. “There’s jealousy,” she said. “I want him back … But I haven’t asked why.”

As for Jason, “Why?” still gnaws at him, but he tries not to dwell on it. God didn’t answer the question with Bristol, he said, and he’s not expecting an answer with Knox.

“We are angry. We are bewildered. We don’t understand. We are hurting and crushed,” he said. “But our faith in God is such that we choose to say it will be well, even though it isn’t right now.”