Days after this Santa photo was taken, four-year-old Ivy's life was tragically cut short

It was eight days before Christmas 2024, and Rhiannon Egan-Lee's four-year-old daughter, Ivy, was counting down the days until Santa arrived.

There were presents under the tree in the living room of the family home in Morwell, in Victoria's Latrobe Valley, about two hours from Melbourne.

"She was so excited for Christmas," Rhiannon told nine.com.au. "We got her Santa photo done on the Saturday morning prior with her two cousins."

But Ivy would never get to open her presents.

Instead, she became a devastating statistic – one of the 357 drowning deaths recorded in Australia during the 2024-25 financial year.

Ivy was typically at daycare on Tuesdays, but on December 17, 2024, Rhiannon had the day off work and she decided to help her sister get ready for Christmas by inviting her daughter – Ivy's cousin – to spend the afternoon with them.

The girls were born just a month apart and were best friends.

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"They were like ying and yang," Rhiannon said. "They were like twins and spent all their time together." 

After picking up her niece and getting them KFC for lunch, they went back to the rental home Rhiannon had moved into that February along with Rhiannon's mum and teenage son.

"They were going back and forth between the bedroom and kitchen," Rhiannon recalled.

The back door off the kitchen was open leading to the backyard.

"I had been in and out with them," she said.

"I turned around to make a cup of coffee. I was waiting for the kettle to boil and [my niece] came in and said 'Ivy is in the pool'."

Rhiannon, who estimated it took four minutes for the kettle to boil, dropped her cup and ran outside.

She had been "barely aware" the neighbouring home had a pool, but had noticed the poor condition of the timber boundary fence that divided her yard from next door.

In fact, when she inspected the rental property, the woman who showed her the home mentioned the poor state of the fence and promised it would get replaced.

But it never happened, and on that day, Ivy removed one of two wooden palings from the timber fence, crawled through the gap, took off her dress and slipped into the neighbour's pool.

By the time Rhiannon's niece raised the alarm and she ran outside, it was too late.

"She was in the pool. I could see her floating there," Rhiannon said.

"The second I saw her, I knew she was gone.

"I jumped straight in and I got her straight out."

The pool owner was not home, but their neighbour heard the commotion and came to help.

Rhiannon's son called Triple-0 while she performed CPR until emergency services arrived. 

A helicopter landed at the neighbouring school and Ivy was flown to The Royal Children's Hospital in Melbourne, while Rhiannon followed in a police car.

Doctors fought to save Ivy's life for 11 days before they broke the news to Rhiannon that there was nothing more they could do.

She died on December 28 and left behind her grief-stricken family.

"It has been really dramatic for the entire family," Rhiannon said, noting the toll it had taken on her son and niece, who witnessed the event.

"It has really taken away our joy. She was our happiness and that is gone."

As her daughter clung to life in hospital, Rhiannon started to wonder what went wrong.

She did not know anything about pool regulations in Victoria, and did not know a boundary fence was considered an ample pool fence.

She also learned the one next door was deemed compliant after an inspection in February 2024 – around the time the house was sold and Rhiannon moved in next door.

Rhiannon, who also has two adult daughters, has since petitioned the Victorian government to change the rules around boundary fencing forming part of a pool fence.

"To me, a pool fence should completely surround the pool," she said.

"It should be a four-sided, isolated, secondary pool fencing."

She has joined forces with the organisers of Check Your Pool Gate Month to raise further awareness around pool fence and gate safety.

It comes as a new report found 70 per cent of Australian pool owners admitted they hadn't checked their pool gate in the past six months, while 49 per cent were unsure if their pool gate would pass a safety inspection. 

A further 41 per cent admitted they didn't think about their pool gate's safety, while 21 per cent were unsure what to look for and 24 per cent said they didn't have time to check their pool gate.

The survey was conducted by D&D Technologies and Kids Alive – the national water safety education program founded by former Olympic swimming coach Laurie Lawrence in 2000.

Lawrence described the latest report as a "wake-up call".

"Pool gates save lives yet too many people assume theirs is working fine without ever checking," he said.

He was particularly disturbed that 33 per of pool owners did not remember when they last applied for a safety compliance certificate and 69 per cent wouldn't know how to upgrade a pool gate or fence to ensure it met safety standards.

"That kind of complacency is dangerous. Checking the gate works properly only takes a few minutes but it can mean the difference between life and death," Lawrence said.

But Rhiannon also believes there should be a "unified approach throughout Australia" when it comes to pool fencing and gates.

There are currently no national regulations, with pool safety compliance varying from state to state.

For instance, in Victoria, a compliance certificate is valid for four years, yet the coroner who oversaw the coronial investigation into Ivy's death found the boundary fence had become uncompliant in 10 months.

"I want to see Ivy's law enacted," she said.

"I don't want to keep seeing in the news another child getting in their neighbours place and drowning in their pool."

Rhiannon started a TikTok account, Stand up for Ivy, to warn others of the dangers, but often finds herself targeted by trolls who blame her for her daughter's death.

"I don't need anyone else to blame me. I blame myself every day," she said.

"I do feel guilt every day for making a coffee. 

"I should have protected her."

Coronial investigation findings

Following Ivy's death, Victorian Police prepared a report for the coroner and a coronial investigation took place, before the findings were then published by the Coronor's Court of Victoria.

Coroner David Ryan found that the former owner of the property was required to have the pool inspected and certified prior to the sale of the property, which found the "timber paling boundary fence had some missing/broken palings/palings coming away from the timber rails". 

The owner arranged for a relative to repair the fence and the pool was subsequently deemed compliant by an inspector.

The day after Ivy was pulled from the pool, Latrobe City Council arranged for the boundary fence to be inspected and found it to be "not serviceable".

The new owner was ordered to replace the fence, which he did.

The coroner found that the pool owner did not foresee the risk that was presented by the condition of the boundary fence, which was "not compliant" at the time Ivy accessed the pool. 

However, he said it was the "sole responsibility of the pool owner to ensure the safety barrier is properly maintained" and that the "adjoining owner is not responsible for the compliance and maintenance of the shared fence that the pool owner is relying on as a pool safety barrier".

"It is also critically important that when considering whether to issue a Certificate of Barrier Compliance under the Regulations, inspectors carefully assess the likelihood of a safety barrier becoming non-compliant with the regulations within the four-year life cycle of that certificate," he said.

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