Camden mom starts prevention initiative after 13-year-old son drowns in Kendall Lake

CAMDEN, SC (WOLO) — After a 13-year-old boy drowned in Camden’s Kendall Lake last summer, his mother says she’s fighting to prevent tragedy from affecting other families.

Jae’lyn Wells and his then 12-year-old brother Justin decided to get in the water with friends last June, but Jae’lyn never made it home.

Their mother Courtney Nelson has started a new organization called “JaeSwims” — dedicated to help prevent future drownings.

“It’s basically going to be a community center where the children can come and swim, they can have swimming lessons if they don’t know how to swim. Also “JaeSwims” is about teaching them how not to panic if they are drowning or what to do with a friend if a friend is drowning,” Nelson says.

She describes her son as athletic, funny, someone who never met a stranger, and a young man who was protective of other kids his age making sure no one around him was bullied.

“This is hard. I don’t want this happening to another family or another mother or another father what happened to me and to the many other lives that have been lost in Kendall Lake. Not just here in Camden, SC, but all over the world,” she says.

And while Nelson says neither Jae’lyn nor Justin knew how to swim, she and her attorney Rick Detwiler believe Jae’lyn’s death may have been preventable had safety precautions and equipment been available.

According to Detwiler and the organizer of Tuesday’s memorial Brandon Upson, the life preserver and warning sign placed at the water’s edge didn’t occur until the death of another young man, 20-year-old Justin Jenkins, four months after Jae’lyn drowned.

One family member told ABC Columbia’s Lee Williams that a 15 -foot drop occurs close to shore, adding to the dangers at Kendall Lake.

Dr. Germon “Mama G” Miller is a candidate for the SC House of Representatives, District 70.

“For children aged five to 14, drowning is the 2nd leading cause of unintentional injury and death,” Dr. Miller says.

Miller has pledged to introduce “Jae’lyn’s Law” should she be elected on June 11th – a bill designed to enforce safety regulations around public water spaces.

The CDC reports that nearly half of all drownings in SC occur in natural bodies of water.