The Gold Coast Bulletin

CHRISTINE HONOURS LOST SON

- NICHOLAS MCELROY

CHRISTINE Dennis swims. It’s part of the process.

Because after five years she has learned there’s no such thing as closure, not after losing her son.

“There’s no closure, (training) is part of the process, I don’t know where closure is,” Ms Dennis said after a training session at the Miami Aquatic Centre.

It’s been five years this month since Jerry, 17, died during a training session with the Northcliff­e Surf Life Saving Club at Mermaid Waters.

For his grieving mother, “pulling myself off the pavement” has taken a long time.

In the months and years following Jerry’s death, Ms Dennis quit her job, her marriage broke down and she found binge drinking just made things worse.

She said she thinks about her boy every day but swimming helps.

“The anxiety you get from that stuff, when you exercise, it gets it out of your system,” she said.

“Swimming never gets rid of it for good, it always comes back, but if I don’t it really brings me down.

“Training puts your focus on the job at hand.”

She said it was ironic that exercise helped because that was how Jerry died, in a training session.

Southport Coroner James McDougall found in February 2015 that Jerry fell unconsciou­s and drowned during a board paddling session on August 1, 2013, due to or as a consequenc­e of cardiomega­ly – abnormal enlargemen­t of the heart – and that another significan­t condition had been asthma with a recent respirator­y tract infection.

“The thickness of the wall of the heart thickens and doesn’t form the way it should,” Ms Dennis explained, adding that she wanted to share the coroner’s findings.

She said her son had a head cold before his final training sessions, which she felt might have contribute­d to his death. “The next morning he got up and went to swimming training, then he want to school, then we met him for a board squad session with the club,” she said. “There’s not a day I don’t think about it.”

She urged athletes of all ages to have their hearts checked for any conditions.

“People get into a comfort zone and think everything is always going to stay the same and take it for granted, (but) things can happen to anyone,” Ms Dennis said.

“There’s something in my head that makes me think it’s somehow related to all that training. Even if he had it before, the training has amplified it, it’s brought it on.”

She is attempting the Coolangatt­a Gold 21km short course race this year in tribute to her son, who did not get his chance to compete.

Ms Dennis has set up a Facebook page, Gold for Jerry, so people can follow her journey and support her financiall­y as she trains for the October event and as she raises awareness of heart problems in athletes.

 ?? Picture: GLENN HAMPSON ?? Christine Dennis, mother of Jerry, 17, who died during a surf life saving training session. She is paying tribute to him by taking part in the Coolangatt­a Gold 21km race.
Picture: GLENN HAMPSON Christine Dennis, mother of Jerry, 17, who died during a surf life saving training session. She is paying tribute to him by taking part in the Coolangatt­a Gold 21km race.
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