THE family of distraught mum Kerry Lucas fear she may never recover from the shocking accident that took the life of her baby son Leonardo.
Ms Lucas' mother Beverley said her anguished daughter would "never get over" the death of her five-month-old son, who drowned after his pram rolled into the Torrens River in Adelaide on Friday.
"Kerry is just beside herself, absolutely devastated. She keeps going over and over things in her head, asking herself, 'Why didn't I put the brake on?' " Mrs Lucas said.
"She'll never get over this – never."
Yesterday, Ms Lucas, 30, and her husband Wesley Legrand tried to come to terms with the tragic accident that happened when Kerry turned her back on the pram to take a mobile phone call.
As she talked, the five-month old's pram slid down a grassy slope and into the river, where he was found 20 minutes later.
Family and friends gathered at the family's Adelaide home yesterday to offer support to the grief-stricken couple.
Beverley Lucas described her daughter and stockbroker son-in-law as "unbelievable" parents.
"You wouldn't believe how careful they were," she said.
"They were worried about microwaves, they would ask, 'Am I rocking him too hard?' and nobody was allowed to smoke anywhere near him.
"He was such a beautiful little boy. We just can't believe it. This is such a terrible tragedy."
She said her daughter was overwhelmed by grief and unable to speak.
Police described Friday's events as a tragic set of circumstances.
After interviewing Ms Lucas, detectives re-enacted the events five times.
"On each occasion the pusher behaved exactly as she had described," a senior officer said.
"Each time it went into the water there was no splashing sound because the kikuyu grass had grown so thickly into the water's edge.
"We have also ruled out any indications there was a third person involved, any post-natal depression or disharmony – it is just a tragic set of circumstances."
Ms Lucas, a model and triathlete, was jogging on a running track alongside the river on Friday morning when she stopped to answer a call to her mobile phone.
She scribbled a number on her leg – she didn't have any paper – at the same time turning her back on the pram.
When she finished the call and looked up, her child had vanished. Fearing her son had been abducted, witnesses said Ms Lucas was "hysterical" as she ran along a path towards a nearby bridge, helplessly searching for the baby.
"She just screamed, 'Have you seen my baby? My baby's been stolen,' " witness Noel Mobbs said.
Only three days before his death, baby Leonardo had accompanied his mum to an end-of-year function at her Adelaide modelling agency.
Agent Tanya Powell said Kerry had been proudly showing off the "smiley, beautiful little child".
"He was the dearest little boy and this is just the worst thing that can happen to any young couple. We are all in mourning," she said.
Ms Powell, who has known the model since she was 13, said a child had been Kerry's dream for many years.
The couple had tried to conceive for eight months, with Kerry questioning if a battle with chronic fatigue syndrome six years ago had hampered her ability to get pregnant.
"I'm deeply worried about Kerry in particular, how she will cope with this," Ms Powell said.
"This will crush her forever, I just don't know how she's going to get through it.
"It was something she had been waiting to have, a little child, for many years."
So overjoyed were the couple by their new child, they etched Leo's name and birthdate on a bamboo pole in Adelaide's Botanic Gardens soon after he was born in July.
"He's part of the gang now," Ms Lucas said at the time.
The couple had scratched their names into a bamboo tree on their wedding day in November last year.
One of the first people on the scene on Friday, reporter Jessica Adamson, yesterday described the desperate scenes as Ms Lucas searched for her child.
Ms Adamson and three cameramen had raced to the river from their nearby Channel 7 studio after hearing Ms Lucas's screams for help.
She said she did not know what to do when Mr Legrand kept frantically calling Ms Lucas's mobile phone, which Ms Adamson was holding.
"He rang right in the middle of it, knowing something was wrong, but I didn't want to be the one to tell him," she said.
"She had called him 10 minutes earlier to say (Leonardo) was missing."
"She had gone into the river to get him, but she kept slipping back into the river."
Ms Adamson said it was difficult to overcome the feeling of helplessness.
"It was probably one of the worst stories I've had to cover, and I did the tsunami," she said.
"The problem was, we were looking for him in one spot, thinking he had been abducted, but all the time he was hundreds of metres away in the river.
"It's just so so sad. If we'd known he was in the river, we could have got to him a bit earlier."
Mr Mobbs had been cycling when he heard Ms Lucas's frantic shouts.
"She just screamed, 'Have you seen my baby? My baby's been stolen,' " he said.
"My first thought, not that I would say it to her, was, 'God, I hope the pram hasn't gone into the river.' I wish I'd known, maybe if we'd known where to look something could have been done sooner."
Another passerby, who did not want to be identified, was shocked by the news.
"I walk my grandchildren around here all the time," she said. "You always think about these things, but never think it would really happen."
It was not the first time such an incident has occurred along the river.
In 1995 Thai Vu Nguyen was awarded a bravery medal when he dived into the 4m-deep water to find a stroller with two-year-old Anthony Aloisio strapped into it.
Though its brakes were on, it rolled away from the child's father into the Torrens.
A coroner's inquest will be conducted into Friday's tragedy.
