Sapulpa Family Promoting Water Safety After Toddler's Death

Every day, about ten people die from accidental drowning; one Green Country family knows how quickly that can happen, and how long the devastation lingers after.

The family lost their littlest loved one, not even 2-years-old, to drowning; now they're promoting water safety.

One in five people who drown are children.

Jennifer Cooper and her family said it's impossible for parents to watch their kids every second of every day, but there are precautions they wish had been in the place when Jennifer's daughter, Kyndall, fell in the family pool.

It's taken three years for Jennifer to get to this point. She and her sisters Jody, Julie and her daughter's sister Mackenzie are turning a family tragedy into awareness.

"We've all been wanting to do something. I don't know that we could all wrap our heads around, 'What can we do,'" Jennifer said.

Three years ago, she lost her almost 2-year-old daughter, Kyndall.

She and Kyndall were at their Sapulpa home with Kyndall's grandparents. Kyndall was sitting in the living room, watching Barney.

"My mom went to go switch some laundry and I went to go get Kyndall, 'cause we were going to go and run some errands. And I went, and I didn't see Kyndall, but I saw the back door open, and I went straight for the back door and I just saw her in the pool," Jennifer said.

Kyndall was flown to the hospital, but the bad news came soon.

The family put the pool in the weekend before.

Now, three years later, the girls smile when they think of Kyndall, an active little girl who was happiest in the dirt.

"Always happy, full of life, energetic," Julie Burgess, Kyndall's aunt, said.

It's Kyndall's memory that led her loved ones to create Kare 4 Kyndall; they're hosting a Water Safety Day of Awareness in Sapulpa.

Learn More About Water Safety Day Of Awareness

"If we would've thought putting the fences up first, or putting the locks up first, or something like that, where the door couldn't get open, or if the door could get open now we have a fence around our porch," Jennifer said.

It's messages like that Jennifer wants to get across to spare other families of the devastation her family has endured.

The water safety event will be at the Sapulpa Aquatic Center Thursday afternoon from 4:00 to 8:00.

The OHP Marine Squadron, Army Corps of Engineers, Sapulpa firefighters, Life Flight will all be there. You can even sign up for free CPR lessons.