Rodeo star Spencer Wright’s wife said turning away briefly moments before their 3-year-old son Levi’s drowning accident on their Utah property will “haunt me for the rest of my life.”
“In that moment he was my responsibility alone,” Kallie Wright wrote in a Facebook post Thursday, days after Levi was taken off life support.
“Whether I went back to check on my sleeping baby, swap the laundry, wash a bottle or put away lunch, I honestly don’t know,” she wrote. “Whatever it was, wasn’t more important than following him that day.”
Levi was driving his toy tractor on the family’s 24-acre Utah property on May 21 when he drove into a creek. Rescuers found him unresponsive about a mile downstream.
Days after the incident, the toddler opened his eyes, but never regained consciousness after sustaining a severe brain injury. He died June 2 after his parents decided to withdraw life-sustaining treatment.
In her post on Thursday, Wright said that her children had ridden their bikes, driven their toys and walked across the creek “a million times.” Water only runs through the creek a short time during the year, she wrote.
“Unless you’ve been to my place it’s hard to paint a picture of how something like this can happen,” she said, sharing a video showing her family on horses crossing the water. “There is a creek that runs through our 24 acre property and separates our house from Grandma and Grandpa’s, through that creek is a road made of concrete. It’s how we’ve gotten to their house safely most days as sometimes our dirt road is a nascar raceway.”
She said Levi had not done “anything he hasn’t done before, but this time the water was at its peak & strong enough to push his tractor off the road into the creek as he drove through.”
Wright said her son had asked her if he could ride his toy tractor. She told him that the grandmother wasn’t at home, not to drive through the creek and to stay by their house.
“As he drove off, I ran back in the house. That’s a decision that will haunt me for the rest of my life,” she said.
Wright ended her post with two verses from the Bible and said she prays that anyone judging her or using harsh words never has to experience her nightmare.
“Although I’m a firm believer that our stories are written long before we reach this earth & that our Lord will take us when he’s ready, I will lose sleep over this for eternity but with this I know 3 things to be true. 1. I am not a perfect mom but I am a good mom. 2. My little boy loved me with all he had. 3. Never say never because it only takes seconds and it can happen to you too,” she said.
Family friend and spokesperson Mindy Sue Clark came to Wright’s defense. She posted on Facebook that the creek is dry “almost 90% of the year, and there’s about 10 days or so with the run off in spring that it gets full.”
Clark called Kallie and Spencer the “most amazing parents” and said they were put “on this earth to have children.”
“This is an accident that can happen to anyone at any time,” she said. “Now there’s a mom with one less baby to tuck in at night, and people who want to rub salt on that wound. Those people are a special kind of evil and cruel. And as Kallie said, none of us hope you’re ever on the receiving end of. To those of you who have been a light, please continue to lift my friends up in prayer.”