How Do You Survive Losing a Child

Turning Tragedy into Purpose

[⇒ Watch Debbie's  video interview here]

In the quiet hills of North Wales - a place of waterfalls, wild beauty and hidden danger - life changed forever for Debbie Turnbull MBE.

Nineteen years have passed, but the moment remains sharp, alive, part of her heartbeat.

Her son, Christopher, was strong, bright, joyful - a rugby-playing, fish-like swimmer who loved adventure. He and his friends often visited a particular waterfall, a spot known for canoe accidents but also for summer fun. They had been there many times before.

The sun had been blistering that season, the water inviting, the laughter unrestrained. They were doing no harm. Just boys being boys.

On that day, two friends stood above on a bridge filming, as teenagers everywhere were beginning to capture life on their phones.

Christopher sat on a ledge below, smiling, giving a thumbs-up in his trademark way.

Then he turned.  He slipped.

He fell into what rescuers call the boil - the churning, icy turbulence where three mountain waters meet. Though the world around them was hot, that water was the temperature of a household fridge, colder even.

Within minutes he was gone, pulled under by the force of the falls, drawn through an invisible cave carved by centuries of power. A tree root jutted through the rock. His trainer caught.

And that was how Debbie lost him.

The Call No Parent Should Hear

Around 4:10pm, two helicopters passed overhead. Debbie felt a shiver, but dismissed it. She was working from home, the day unremarkable until her husband walked in.

“Where’s Chris?” he asked.

“He’s gone to the falls,” she replied.

“He’s dead,” he said.

And she knew.

Before confirmation, before any voice told her - she knew.

At 7:04pm, Christopher’s body was recovered. Pain like no language exists to hold it.

Choosing to Rise - Or to Fall

In the aftermath, Debbie found herself standing in a place few imagine: a space between living and not wanting to.

Grief hollowed her. The world continued - daffodils still bloomed, the sun still rose - indifferent to her loss, yet somehow teaching her that life does not pause for any of us.

Within three weeks, she walked into her first school and told her story. Within six months, she was educating 3,000 young people every week.

She wanted answers. Why could someone so fit, so capable, drown?

She spoke to mountain rescue. She trained alongside search dogs and divers. She learned how bodies move through water, how temperature steals strength, how a hidden cave can hold a child captive out of sight.

This learning became purpose.

The pain became a mission.

And River & Sea Sense was born.

A Mission to Keep Others Safe

Debbie has since educated over 850,000 children, with a goal to reach one million hearts.

She built programmes for schools, for families, for communities. She became a keynote speaker, standing on stages across the UK, including at the National Drowning Prevention Conference in Birmingham.

From each talk, something new seems to find her: collaborations, partnerships, invitations to work with fire services, government, petition groups.

Awards followed - not as accolades but as amplifiers. Theresa May presented her a Points of Light Award. Bear Grylls honoured her with a National Lottery Special Achievement Award.  And most recently there was the Great British Entrepreneur Award. 

But probably the most surprising and special of all was this:  one day, a letter arrived, small and unassuming, that she nearly overlooked.  It was from King Charles to inform her she had been awarded an MBE (Member of the British Empire medal).   

Debbie nearly fell when she curtsied before Princess Anne at Buckingham Palace - nerves, emotion, the magnitude of it all - but she steadied, bowed her head, and received recognition for a journey she never asked for, yet chose to walk with courage.

Moving Toward Healing - For Herself and Others

Debbie speaks openly about surviving the unthinkable.

She speaks, too, about the quieter pains - the kind childhood hides until adulthood can name them. She recognises now that she endured narcissistic abuse growing up. Trauma behind trauma, like the layers of rock beneath the waterfall that stole her son.

Yet Debbie is not defined by tragedy. She is defined by what rose from it.

She immersed herself in personal development - books, spiritual teachings, training in somatic trauma, positive psychology, breath, nervous-system work, Infinite Possibilities and beyond. She believes deeply that healing is possible, that joy can return, that meaning can grow from devastation.

Out of this has come her new project: Heart & Soul - a programme to help people understand and regulate their nervous systems, heal from trauma, and rediscover the magic that still exists in life.

“We all need a bit of fairy dust,” she smiles.

Her message is unwavering:  We have to choose to live.

Even through grief.  Even through fear.  Even when the world has broken us open.

Wisdom From a Mother’s Heart

When Debbie is asked what she would say to anyone facing trauma, loss, or the collapse of certainty, she offers this:

Don’t run from your pain - turn inward. Don’t numb it - listen to it.

Accept when things are not okay. Ask for help.

Life isn’t healed by pretending.

We are here to live, not to shrink.

And when words weren’t enough, she wrote a poem - spoken from the raw centre of grief, from nights where sleep was the only place she met her son. A poem about longing, about escape, about love that didn’t die with the body that held it. A poem she still returns to, though less often now, as she steps into the light of a life remade.

Debbie walks forward carrying her son Christopher with her - not in memory alone, but in purpose. His picture, she says, sometimes appears unprompted on her laptop, as if he visits, watches, approves.

She doesn’t claim to have healed - only to have chosen healing.

And through her work, thousands of lives may never reach the waterfall’s boil.

Children will come home.

That is Christopher’s legacy.

And Debbie’s honouring of it is nothing short of extraordinary.

Contact Debbie at: 

Website – www.riverandseasense.com

Email debbie@riverandseasense.com

Facebook – River And Sea Sense Community

Facebook – Debbie Anne Turnbull 

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