Izzy was excited (and nervous) for his very first swim lesson. His mom Dori said they chose a reputable instructor named Lexie TenHuisen, the operator of "Swim With Lexie," who had taught his big sister two years ago.
On June 13, Dori Scott said she drove her son to his first lesson, a group class at a pool in Hephzibah, Georgia, close to their home.
When she arrived, Dori said she was told that parents couldn't stay to watch the lesson, to avoid distracting the children.
"I understood because I am a hair stylist and know that children can act differently when their parents are around," Dori Scott told TODAY Parents. "But I didn't want to leave my baby." Still, she waited in the car until the lesson was over.
Dori Scott said that although Izzy had fun at his lesson, he was reluctant to attend the second class on June 14.
“What if I drown?” Izzy asked, his mom later told sheriff's deputies, and she assured him that wouldn’t happen.
But as Dori Scott sat in her car during the second swim lesson she said a parent knocked frantically on her window. "She said, 'Come check on your baby,'" she told TODAY Parents. "I immediately lost it because I saw it in her eyes."
"I went through the gate and saw Izzy laying (next to) the pool unresponsive," said Dori Scott. "A parent was doing CPR but he was limp."
"I said, 'What happened?' and (Lexie) said, 'I don't know,'" said Dori Scott. "It felt like a dream ... a mother's worst nightmare." On June 15, Izzy was declared dead as a result of "accidental drowning."
According to a media release from the sheriff's department, toward the end of the lesson, Izzy got into the deep end of the pool undetected. When TenHuisen's granddaughter noticed him there, the sheriff's report says, she alerted the instructor, who had been drying off on the deck.
TenHuisen, who has 49 years experience teaching swimming, jumped in the pool to save Izzy, the sheriff's report says. She and another parent, a registered nurse who was waiting for her child's swim lesson to start, started CPR until help arrived, the official report says.