Brogan and her brother Haydn had grown up on the water, but an evening swim changed their lives forever…
Brimming with excitement, my brother Haydn shared his good news with me.
‘I’ve been selected to train on the GBR national sailing squad,’ he said.
‘That’s amazing!’ I replied.
Since Haydn was six, we’d had a family membership at our nearby sailing club.
Years passed, but while I found less time to devote to the activity, Haydn grew up to become a competitive and talented sailor.
In time, he also qualified as a marine engineer and loved working on the water.
I was so proud of him.
And when I told him I was pregnant, he was excited about becoming an uncle.
One hot summer’s day when I was seven months’ gone, I picked Mum up from her house and went for a 4D scan to see my baby.
‘What’s Haydn up to later?’ I asked.
He still lived at home and I knew that he’d want to take advantage of such lovely weather that evening after he finished work.
‘He’s undecided, but said he would most likely go paddle boarding or sailing,’ she smiled.
After the excitement of the scan, later that night, I drifted off to sleep.
The next thing I knew, I woke up to the sound of my labradoodle moving around the bedroom.
Half asleep, I realised my phone was buzzing with an incoming call on the bedside table.
Answering it, I heard a distressed voice down the end of the line. It was Haydn’s best friend.
‘Haydn’s gone swimming and he’s in danger,’ he said. ‘Everyone is out looking for him. Please tell your parents.’
He said Haydn and a friend had gone swimming, and when he had got into trouble, she’d alerted the coastguard before calling him.
Feeling shocked, I immediately phoned my parents, but there was no answer.
It was around midnight and I presumed they were asleep, so I drove over there.
‘We’ll go, and you stay at home,’ Dad said once I’d told them what happened. ‘We’ll keep you updated.’
'Everyone is out looking for him'
I went home, and waited anxiously by the phone until my parents rang with an update.
When they did, they told me the coastguard, fire and rescue, police and the RNLI were all out searching.
I desperately tried to track his smartwatch, but it had fallen out of range before he entered the water.
The next day, my sister arrived with her boyfriend, and we continued the search for Haydn.
But this time we had help from hundreds of people who formed a rescue party to search the coast line, crevices and beaches from the Wirral to Isle of Man.
They’d turned up after she’d posted on her Instagram page asking for volunteers to help look for Haydn.
Even though he had been missing for a couple of days, everyone was hopeful that he was still out there and alive.
Haydn was such a strong swimmer that we knew something serious must have happened for him not to be able to swim back to shore.
Soon, we came to the same conclusion. We believed he’d been stung by a jellyfish.
‘A sting would have left him unable to move his legs,’ I said.
We just hoped that he had managed to float on his back to safety.
After searching every day, I travelled home to support and update our grandparents.
On what should have been Haydn’s 24th birthday, instead of celebrating, we were still searching for him.
But we continued to remain hopeful.
Then five days after Haydn had gone missing, my family received a visit from police officers.
I clocked the serious look on their faces.
‘I’m sorry to inform you, but we’ve found Haydn’s body,’ an officer said.
We had been trying so hard to stay strong, that in that moment none of us broke down and cried.
We were told Haydn’s body had been found by the coastguard near the marina in Crosby.
The next few days were a blur.
On the day of my brother’s funeral, the service was full, and it was lovely to see so many pay their final respects to him.
I met some of his friends, and it was heart-warming when they shared their favourite memories of Haydn.
In time, I gave birth to a beautiful baby boy, who I named Roman. However, there was sadness that Haydn wasn’t here to meet his nephew.
When the inquest began, we found out more about what happened to Haydn that day.
We heard that he’d gone to the beach with a female friend on their first date at Derby Pool, New Brighton in Merseyside, when they decided to swim to the offshore wind turbines.
However, when they were within 500 metres of them, they became tired and decided to turn back and return to the shore.
Only, Haydn was suffering from cramp and fatigue.
His friend tried to encourage him to keep swimming, but he was too exhausted, and they agreed she should head to shore without him and get help.
She swam for another hour, during which time she could still hear Haydn, because he was shouting for help.
However, by the time she reached the beach three miles away and then contacted the coastguard, Haydn had disappeared under the water.
The possibility of a jellyfish sting was mentioned, but it couldn’t be proven nor disproven due to the amount of time Haydn’s body had been underwater.
As a family, we were determined that our tragedy should help others, and launched a campaign called Stay Safe for Haydn.
We set up a Facebook group where we shared water safety messages.
Our aim was to raise awareness about the potential dangers of swimming in open water, and encourage everyone out there to stay safe.
We knew if it could happen to someone like Haydn, an experienced swimmer, than it could happen to anyone.
Now, we’ve spread our message as far as Westminster, where my sister Megan and I spoke at a World Drowning Prevention Day event.
We are forever grateful to the RNLI for tirelessly searching for Haydn that night, and have started fundraising for them.
We walked a mile every day as part of the charity’s Mayday Mile initiative, and were thrilled to raise more than £1,000.
Educating people about the dangers of the water will be Haydn’s legacy.
Brogan Griffiths, 26, Warrington, Cheshire
To support the RNLI’s Winter Appeal, go to rnli.org/WinterAppeal