Mother updated Twitter as her son, two, lay dying

[I am a Ghost]

By Paul Thompson
Last updated at 8:39 AM on 18th December 2009


A mother posted messages on Twitter as rescue workers tried to save her dying son.
Shellie Ross, who is in her 30s, sent out ‘tweets’ to the social networking site just minutes after two-year-old Bryson was found floating face down in the family’s swimming pool.
As paramedics tried to revive him, Ross, who used the online name ‘Military-Mom’, posted the note: ‘Please pray like never before, my 2 yr old fell in the pool.’

Five hours later, after he was pronounced dead from drowning, she wrote, ‘Remembering my million dollar baby’.

She then uploaded photos of Bryson to be viewed by her 5,000 followers. But her actions have provoked anger from fellow bloggers and Twitter users, and raised questions about the sharing of private information over the internet.
One user, Madison McGraw, wrote: ‘The first thing I thought when I saw the tweet was that it was very sad. I just thought, “Who would tweet that her son just drowned?” I couldn’t believe it.

‘The person that I have compassion for is her son who might still be alive if Ross interacted with her son like she interacted with people on Twitter.
‘It shows the repercussions for social media gone awry.’
Yesterday, a police spokesman said Ross’s 11-year-old son, who had been cleaning out the chicken coup at the family’s home in Merritt Island, Florida, had called an ambulance after noticing his brother had fallen into the water.

Ross sent her first tweet at 10.22pm British time on Monday – just a minute before the 999 call was made.
Records show an ambulance arrived at the house at 10.38pm and Ross posted another message 34 minutes later.

Yesterday, Ross defended the use of Twitter to announce her son’s death, saying no one ‘had a right to question my actions’. ‘I didn’t tweet-by-tweet the accident,’ she said.
Trisha Haas, who founded the website Momdot.com where Ross worked, defended her friend’s actions, saying: ‘She twitters a lot and was close friends with people in the blogging community’.
Ross and her husband Steven, who is in the U.S. Air Force, have asked to be left in private so they can mourn their son.

 

[Scarlet Ibis]

I don't see anything at all wrong with that. She needed to feel the presence of people who cared about her in her time of need and she reached out the fastest way she could.

I had a friend whose baby died and the first thing she did was sit down at her computer and sign onto AIM where she found me and said: My baby just died. She needed someone who would care and her computer was right there. It's a new age. This is how people's minds work now.

I think it's disgusting that anyone would question the motives and actions of a woman who is grieving the loss of her child. Everyone reacts to these things in their own way.

 

[Mozza220559]

I'd be so distraught and hysterical, the internet would be the last thing on my mind if my CHILD HAD DIED. Anyway what was she doing letting her 2 years old around a swimming pool without supervision?

I'd be inconsolable, not writing messages on twitter.

f***ing hell.

What an absolute moron.

 

[I am a Ghost]

I don't see anything at all wrong with that. She needed to feel the presence of people who cared about her in her time of need and she reached out the fastest way she could.
I had a friend whose baby died and the first thing she did was sit down at her computer and sign onto AIM where she found me and said: My baby just died. She needed someone who would care and her computer was right there. It's a new age. This is how people's minds work now.

I think it's disgusting that anyone would question the motives and actions of a woman who is grieving the loss of her child. Everyone reacts to these things in their own way.

I would have thought that reaching out to her 11 year old son, whose brother lay dying, would have been better in terms of "presence" or "fastest".

 

[Franzanna]

I don't question her motives after the call was made, but it says that she sent the first tweet a minute before her other son called the ambulance. I have no problem with the situation, providing that he had been pulled out of the pool before she started tweeting about it.

 

[Mozza220559]

I would have thought that reaching out to her 11 year old son, whose brother lay dying, would have been better in terms of "presence" or "fastest".

Exactly.

She should have been holding her 11 year old son and being with her actual family.

 

[Anker Ignis Fatuus Von K.]

Did I get this right: She tweeted that her son had fallen into the pool BEFORE her other son called an ambulance? Why the hell did she not call an ambulance?

 

[jamescagney]

Did I get this right: She tweeted that her son had fallen into the pool BEFORE her other son called an ambulance? Why the hell did she not call an ambulance?

It does sound like potential poor judgement. But the Internet is not to blame. She said: "Please pray like never before." I'm guessing the problem here isn't Internet addiction but religion addiction. She believed in the power of religion and prayer as much as (or more than) the power of medicine. Which IMHO is BSC, but many many more people agree with her than with me. There are even studies claiming to prove objectively that prayer does work somehow.

I'd also note that she probably tweeted from her cell phone, which only takes a few seconds to do. In her mind, taking a few seconds to get hundreds of people praying *while* someone else was also phoning the ambulance was a good gamble, a risk worth taking.

It's not at all the choice I would make... except when you're standing there powerless and out of control with a child possibly dying, it's hard to guess in advance what kind of crazy or odd-seeming decisions you might make.

Once again, remotely parenting other people's kids or remotely judging others lives is not as successful as we all seem to think it is, esp. when all the facts are not known. My advice is to MYOB.

 

[MindlessRuffian]

I don't see anything at all wrong with that. She needed to feel the presence of people who cared about her in her time of need and she reached out the fastest way she could.

I had a friend whose baby died and the first thing she did was sit down at her computer and sign onto AIM where she found me and said: My baby just died. She needed someone who would care and her computer was right there. It's a new age. This is how people's minds work now.

I think it's disgusting that anyone would question the motives and actions of a woman who is grieving the loss of her child. Everyone reacts to these things in their own way.

I agree. The only part I'm sketched out about is that her first tweet was made before the 911 call...and at a point when he could have probably still been helped.

But other than than, I do agree. When my cousin Dena died in 2001 (she was like a sister to me) the first think I did was go on AIM to find someone to talk to.

 

[CrystalGeezer]

My take on her actions was that she believed in the power of prayer so was trying to get the people she knew to start praying fast, not looking to chat about it.

 

[Disappointed]

CPR is far, FAR more effective than prayer.

 

[CrystalGeezer]

CPR is far, FAR more effective than prayer.

Not when you were hussled off to youth group instead of girl scouts as a youngster. I agree though.

 

[jamescagney]

CPR is far, FAR more effective than prayer.

Don't use "logic" and "facts" to confuse the issue. Religion is supposedly "above" all that. You're supposed to somehow follow and implement a framework that is at the same time beyond human comprehension and knowing.

 

[Flax]

To be far, the kid wasn't dying. The kid was dead already.

 

[bored]

I'd be so distraught and hysterical, the internet would be the last thing on my mind if my CHILD HAD DIED. Anyway what was she doing letting her 2 years old around a swimming pool without supervision?

I'd be inconsolable, not writing messages on twitter.

f***ing hell.

What an absolute moron.

Agree with every word you said.
I wouldn't even be able to talk to anyone or function in any way.

 

[Mozza220559]

Agree with every word you said.
I wouldn't even be able to talk to anyone or function in any way.

How can one even summon up the will to log in to Twitter and write something so profound and harrowing on a two-bit social networking site? That would be so far off my mind if that had happened to me. What will she do next? A Twitter funeral for her blogger friends to attend online?

It seems so acutely inappropriate to even broadcast the news of your immediately deceased son online, how do you think her son felt who's just 11 years old? Was he just meant to console himself?

It's beyond belief.

 

[jamescagney]

How can one even summon up the will to log in to Twitter and write something so profound and harrowing on a two-bit social networking site? That would be so far off my mind if that had happened to me. What will she do next? A Twitter funeral for her blogger friends to attend online?

It seems so acutely inappropriate to even broadcast the news of your immediately deceased son online, how do you think her son felt who's just 11 years old? Was he just meant to console himself?

It's beyond belief.

In my world, everybody's different.

I'm not sure how people here can presume to imagine what it's like to go through something unimaginable like that.

 

[troubleluvsme]

I'd be so distraught and hysterical, the internet would be the last thing on my mind if my CHILD HAD DIED. Anyway what was she doing letting her 2 years old around a swimming pool without supervision?

I'd be inconsolable, not writing messages on twitter.

f***ing hell.

What an absolute moron.

I completely agree with you.
What a f***ing moron.

And how could she have possibly tweeted before calling 911?
Jayziz....what a sad story.

 

[Mozza220559]

In my world, everybody's different.

I'm not sure how people here can presume to imagine what it's like to go through something unimaginable like that.

But there should be some sense and an unwritten rule not to go online when your son has just literally died.

I think there's no room here to be open minded about the situation, she should have been watching her two year old son and been there.

 

[jamescagney]

OK, if you read the entire article, it sounds like we are incorrect on the timeline and many of the other details that are causing outrage here at Solo. To me this sounds potentially like an unfortunate accident that could have happened to most anyone. And it sounds like her posting to the Internet is understandable, wanting to reach out for support in her time of grief. I know people who let their 11-year-old watch their 2-year-old. I know someone whose 2-year-old unlatched a door, went outside and drowned, and she informed her friends on the Internet. Her handle is "Military-Mom," and I understand social media is used more and more for military families to communicate and support each other. I bet this is not unusual at all in the military family community.


www.africanseer.com/america/18342-Twitter-Uproar-Mom-Tweets-About-Sons-Death-Happens.html


Ms Ross sent out a message at 5.22pm on Monday which read: 'Fog is rolling in thick scared the birds back in the coop.'

A minute later police received an emergency call.

Paramedics arrived at Ms Ross's home at 5.38 pm.

At 6.12 pm, Ms Ross tweeted 'Please pray like never before, my 2 yr old fell in the pool.'

Nearly five hours later, after her son had been pronounced dead, Ms Ross tweeted again. 'Remembering my million dollar baby,' she wrote.

Ms Ross included a photo of Bryson in the post, time-stamped at 11.08 pm. A few minutes later, she posted another photo of her son.

Ms Ross's 11-year-old son called emergency services. He had been cleaning out a chicken coop with his mother while his toddler brother played in the garden.

Police spokesman Lieutenant Bruce Barnett said Ms Ross had asked her older son to turn off a hose inside the pool enclosure but the gate behind him did not close properly.

'When Ross finished cleaning she went inside and was looking for the two-year-old, who she thought was with her 11-year-old, and wasn't able to find him and started to panic,' he said. 'That's when she found him floating.'

Lt Barnett said Ms Ross said her son was in the water for 'maybe five minutes' and performed CPR on her son before paramedics arrived.

'Nobody has a right to question why,' Ms Ross tweeted. 'I didn't tweet-by-tweet the accident.'

She also wrote: 'I was outside with him and it took two seconds for him to slip away.'