One-year-old boy accidentally drowned in hot tub, inquest finds

The death of a one-year-old boy who drowned in a hot tub in a family friend’s garden was a tragic accident, an inquest has concluded.

Jetson Maffia-Kerbey was 21 months old when he died on 13 June 2022. The inquest at Maidstone county hall heard that on the day of Jetson’s death, his father, Nigel Kerbey, took him to spend the day with family friend Graham Morgan and his three-year-old daughter at their home in Folkestone, Kent.

They went to Morgan’s home where they met his partner, Brook Jordan, and Jetson’s mother, Crystal Maffia.

The two fathers used the hot tub in the garden, bringing the children with them for about 20 minutes, but the lid was not put back after they all got out of the tub.

At about 5pm the two sets of parents sat in the garden while their children played with toys on the decking.

The parents noticed that the children had “gone quiet” and Morgan stood up to look over the decking to see his daughter in the hot tub with Jetson face down in the water.

He pulled the baby, believed to be the cousin of the So Solid Crew member Lisa Maffia, from the water and performed CPR while an ambulance was called. An off-duty police officer who lived nearby heard the commotion and attended the scene, taking over CPR.

Paramedics arrived and they took over resuscitation attempts before taking Jetson to hospital at about 5.45pm.

Efforts resumed at William Harvey hospital in Ashford, Kent, but doctors realised any further attempts would be futile and Jetson’s time of death was recorded as 6.13pm.

Katrina Hepburn, an area coroner for central and south-east Kent, found the cause of death was drowning and concluded Jetson’s death was an accident.

Hepburn said: “A Kent police multi-agency strategy meeting was held on 15 June and concluded Jetson most likely entered the hot tub of his own free will, likely to retrieve a toy spade, and drowned as a result.

“Any question of the wilful neglect of Jetson has been investigated and there is insufficient evidence of any act that would amount to a criminal offence.

“There was a period of between 30 seconds and five minutes where Jetson entered the hot tub.

“A toxicology report found there were no drugs in Jetson’s system, and the postmortem report gave a cause of death of 1A drowning.

“Nothing identified any natural causes of the death, there were no signs of trauma, so it is reasonable to take the view that Jetson died because of drowning and it seems to have been purely accidental.

“The children entered the water and although it was a very short period of time this resulted in the tragic conclusion of Jetson sadly drowning. I therefore conclude Jetson’s death was an accident.”