A TRAUMATISED mum has urged all parents to lock their bath plugs away after she woke up at 4am to the sound of her son screaming.
Two-year-old Archie had managed to fill their tub with water and was minutes away from drowning.
In an Instagram post on the child first aid page Tiny Hearts Education, run by a former paramedic, the parent recounted the horrifying chain of events.
She said: "At 4am, our four-year-old son came running down to our bedroom shouting that his brother was in the bath and needed urgent help.
"We found our cheeky, adventurous two-year-old in the bath, fully clothed with a nappy and everything on.
"He had pulled up a stool to climb in (he’s never climbed in on his own before), put the plug in, turned the tap on and the bath was overflowing and the bathroom was flooding."
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But what wasn't the worst of it.
"The scariest part, and something I feel deeply traumatised by, is that he had clearly been trying to get out for a while and had given up and was tired," the unnamed mum added.
"He was kneeling on his knees and falling asleep in the water."
She couldn't bear to think about what might have happened in a different scenario.
"If our four-year-old hadn’t woken up, I can’t even think about what we may have woken up to," she wrote, explaining that her bedroom was at the other end of the house from the bathroom.
"I’m so, so incredibly grateful my four-year-old woke up as we would never have heard."
The fact that he'd heard Archie and alerted his parents was another "miracle" in itself, the mum wrote, as her eldest son was usually a heavy sleeper.
Archie was checked by a doctor and is thankfully "absolutely fine".
"[But] a few minutes more and this could have been a very different story," the relieved mum said.
She's now installed a lock on the bathroom door and "the plug is also in a locked cupboard.
But she, and Nikki Jurcutz, who runs the social media profile, noted how little is known about the dangers of the everyday devices.
The Instagram post said: "So many parents shared that they never would have thought of this either and they too have their plugs left on the bench or close to the bath.
"All it takes is a few centimetres of water and 20 seconds for a child to drown.
"Please keep bath plugs safely out of reach of your little ones."
The mum added in a post on the CPRKids page: "I hope this story can educate other parents because honestly I consider myself to be really on top of child safety."
Meanwhile, ex-paramedic and founder of first aid education platform Safer Little Steps, Ross Smith, said: "It's vital you always supervise children whether they're in or around water."
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Even taking a quick phone call in the other room or turning away to text could put your tot in danger, he warned.
He walked parents through exactly what to do in a drowning emergency.
