Mum recalls moment she realised her toddler had climbed into the washing machine

Tiffany Barker-Hebb never expected that her life would be torn apart in just a few moments when she took her eyes of her son, Ollie, in 2012.

She and little Ollie, then two-years-old, had waved goodbye to her husband, Chris, they got to work tidying the house together as they often did.

Tiffany, from Utah, USA, had always let Ollie help with the laundry, letting him toss a few things into the top loading washer before turning it on, and that day was no different.

Together they loaded some sheets  in the machine and left the laundry, a pregnant Tiffany pausing a moment to read an article about the child she was still growing in her belly.

It was only a few seconds, the time it took her to skim a paragraph, but when Tiffany glanced up again she suddenly realised Ollie was nowhere to be seen in their tiny home.

Terrified, she began racing through the house looking for her son, calling his name as she searched in the kitchen before heading for the back door, but it was shut and locked.

"I couldn’t hear any noises in the house, not even that stupid washer running," Tiffany wrote of the harrowing day on Love What Matters.

It wasn't until she'd raced all around the first floor of her house that she thought to check the silent laundry room, discovering the machine off and the lid open.

"I stood there looking at the water in shock," she wrote. "Something told me to put my hands in the washing machine."

"When I felt his precious, precious body inside the cold water, words do not even describe the horror, fear and helplessness I felt as I tried to pull my sweet Ollie’s lifeless body out of the washing machine."

Horrified, Tiffany tried to pull her son out of the machine but couldn't pull him free, so she propped his head up out of the water and ran for help.

She raced into the street and screamed for her neighbours to help her and call 911, one neighbour rushing back into Tiffany's home with her to help pull Ollie free from the machine.

As soon as they got his little body out other neighbours rushed to help, performing CPR as they waited for an ambulance to arrive and race Ollie to hospital, but by the time he arrived it was too late.

Tiffany and Chris' little boy had been hooked up to life support after drowning in the washing machine, but after 24 hours it was clear he wouldn't be waking up again.

With zero brain function they had to accept that their little boy was gone.

Together they decided to turn off his life support, Tiffany cradling her son in her arms as he took his last breaths.

"The pain almost made me lose my breath as I watched my little boy slipping away."

After losing Ollie, she and Chris both grieved for their son but knew they had to keep going for the unborn child Tiffany was still carrying.

Now with three children, the family still include Ollie in their lives and talk about him often, Tiffany and Chris having welcomed a baby boy on the anniversary of Ollie's death in march this year.

"For Ollie’s sake, get locks on all your washing machines and DO NOT let your children play in them, they are not toys," Tiffany wrote, warning parents that there are dangers in their homes they may have never considered.

"Please hug all your children extra tight for me and be a bit more patient.”