I have a horrible image in my mind that I just can't erase: my 21-month-old daughter, Alexandra, floating face down in a pool. Her arms are outstretched and limp, just like the dead people you see in movies. Near her, there are children swimming and playing. By the side of the pool, there is a woman wondering about the floating baby: "Is she dead or playing?" she asks as I run past her and jump into the pool.

How is it possible that, just a few minutes before, my husband and I were playing with her and now she's dead? How could this have happened? How could I possibly live without her? Please, Lord, don't let this happen. These were my thoughts during the few minutes that it took to resuscitate our baby.

We were vacationing in a beautiful resort in the Caribbean. The day we arrived, my husband, Alexandra and I went to play in one of the resort's eight pools. I had been taking Alexandra to swimming classes every week the month before our vacation, but all she had learned so far was that she loved being in water. She didn't fear it in the least, and certainly had not learned how to swim. After we splashed around for a while, we all got out of the pool and I told my husband I would go get some towels. Unbeknownst to me, Alexandra was walking right behind me. My husband assumed that I was watching her as he saw us walk away together. I never saw her behind me and assumed he would stay where he was and take care of her.

The towel service was three pools away. I got the towels, chatted with my sister-in-law for a minute or two, and then went back to find them. As soon as my husband and I saw each other we both asked in shock: "Where's Alexandra?!" and started to run toward the first pool. That's when we saw her floating in the water.

I jumped in, pulled her out and gave her to my husband, an emergency physician, who immediately started cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR). She was not breathing, had no pulse, and her face was blue. To my absolute horror, she was dead. Three doctors rushed toward my husband and baby and started pulling at her saying they were doctors -- only one of whom actually knew CPR, and he knew adult CPR. Although they had good intentions, this meant my husband had to actively remove their hands from Alexandra and ignore their instructions while he methodically performed child CPR. Eventually, she started breathing and threw up plenty of pool water. She was groggy as we rushed her in the hotel's truck to a nearby hospital. The exam and x-rays showed she was fine and, miraculously, within an hour of the drowning, she was acting completely normal.

Our story, as it turns out, is not uncommon. More than 600 preschoolers drown every year, and thousands more are hospitalized due to near-drownings. At the resort where we were staying three families told us remarkably similar stories. Since we've returned home we have heard several other similar stories. In every case, two responsible adults were taking care of a child younger than 5, and each adult thought that the child was with the other. In most cases, the incident occurred on the first day of a vacation (presumably when the exact rules of shared supervision had not been worked out yet), and, in many cases, the child died because there was no one around who truly knew how to perform CPR.

We are extremely careful parents who have made our child's safety a priority in our lives. We have carefully childproofed our house, and we never leave her unsupervised. We, of course, knew, as did all of the parents we talked with, that one should never leave a child without supervision near any amount of water. However, this accident was not about knowledge of potential environmental hazards, it was about knowing how to communicate effectively and the importance of not making assumptions.

We stayed at the resort for five days after the incident and, although we didn't sleep very well, we enjoyed and celebrated every minute with our loving daughter. To get through this incident we have decided on some basic rules. As far as communication, we have decided that the default is that Alexandra is always with me unless I ask my husband or he tells me he will watch her. Designating one adult as responsible leaves no room for assumptions like the ones we made that day.

Second, taking a first aid or CPR class once is not enough. I took such a class shortly after the birth of Alexandra and had read articles on CPR, but when I was confronted with my dead baby, I had no memory of what I was suppose to do. I now will take the class every year, as recommended, in case something should happen to my baby or anyone else's baby when my husband is not around. Finally, we have decided to tell all the parents we know about our story. It is awful to relive it with each telling, but it would be worse to have a family lose their child because they didn't have the opportunity to learn from our experience.