'I pictured my son's drowning on my charity swim'

Donna Nelson said this was the moment she had finished the swim and looked up to the sky saying 'I love you son'

A woman whose son drowned while on holiday has told how she visualised his death during an open water charity swim in a Scottish loch.

Christopher Nelson died at the age of 24 after slipping into a canal in Amsterdam in 2015.

His mother Donna had been unable to swim before training for the challenge in St Mary's Loch in the Borders.

The 50-year-old said she had panic attacks in the water and flashback memories of her son.

While the swim was physically difficult, it was the mental and emotional struggle which made it extremely challenging, Donna explained.

"I couldn't even put my face under the water when I started learning to swim last year and then in the open water outside it was even harder," she said.

"The water was so black in the loch and I kept visualising him drowning. I was thinking 'it's so black, was it like this black for him?'. It was so shockingly cold, 'was it this cold for him too?'.

"It was November when he fell in, at 6am, so it would have been pitch black for him and this is what I kept thinking for the whole swim.

"I got panic attacks thinking about this and went into shock lots of times."

Donna said she had always been extremely close with her son Christopher

Donna said that at one point her hands went completely numb in the cold water during the two-hour swim.

As a safety precaution she had Steven Nelson, founder of Beyond Boundaries East Lothian, on a paddle board nearby.

Donna said: "I knew I couldn't give up and told Steven not to dare touch me, as then I would be disqualified. He kept calling out for me to breathe when he could see me having panic attacks. I couldn't have done it without him.

"I couldn't even see the finish line because it was so far away so I just kept thinking every stroke I was nearer to my boy, to Christopher.

"When I got near it was very emotional because I could hear everyone screaming from the water's edge and I told myself to breathe and keep swimming."

Chris Nelson and Stephanie Kollross had just become engaged after a two year relationship when the accident happened

St Mary's Loch, in the Scottish Borders, is where Christopher's ashes are scattered.

Donna, who has two daughters and two grandchildren, swam 2km and other family and friends also did another 25km.

Donna, from Eskbank in Midlothian, did the challenge to raise money for Edinburgh Children's Hospital Charity, which supports the Royal Hospital for Children and Young People, as Christopher was often there as a child following multiple accidents.

Christopher had been in Amsterdam meeting friends of his German fiancée, Stephanie Kollross, when the accident happened.

They had stopped off there on their journey back to Scotland after living for a year in Germany.

When Donna heard he was missing she immediately flew out to Amsterdam with his dad, Scott, to look for him.

They hired a private team of sniffer dogs and his body was found two weeks later.

Donna said: "The dogs took us right to the place he had been on the bridge before he fell in and then Navy divers went into the water there and found him lodged under one of the canal boats.

"He had been given a pair of new Nike trainers as a present earlier that day and Steffie said he had been slipping in them all day.

"He was very clumsy and must have slipped backwards over the railing which was very low."

Donna Nelson said the last text message she received from her son Christopher said he was homesick and so happy to be going back to Scotland

A police report found there was no alcohol or drugs in his system. He had been unable to sleep and had gone for a walk before he was due to drive to Scotland a few hours later.

Donna gave up her position as the CEO of an autism charity to become a yoga teacher after his death.

She said: "I miss my boy so much, he would kill me for saying this but he was a really mum's boy.

"He was a kind soul, a really kind laddie. We were incredibly close, like soulmates. He had just proposed to his girlfriend and was moving back home from Germany as he was homesick, but he never made it."