Earlier Victim’s Parents Suffer Anew : Aftermath: ‘Oh, no’ is the reaction of a couple whose toddler is paralyzed and brain-damaged after falling into a pool at a day-care home in 1989.

Christy Kolbet and Derek Weston experienced a helpless sense of deja vu when they heard Tuesday that an 18-month-old was in critical condition after she had fallen into a swimming pool at a child-care center.

Today, their 4-year-old son, Jonathan Derek Weston, cannot reach out or talk to them because of a similar tragedy two years ago. Jonathan is paralyzed and brain-damaged after tumbling into a swimming pool at an unlicensed North Tustin day-care center on March 30, 1989.

“You watch your child suffer and you hear about it happening to another child and your reaction is, ‘Oh no,’ ” Kolbet, 41, said Tuesday night when she heard about the new victim, Ariel Nicole Moon. “You know what it feels like and you don’t want anyone to go through that because there’s nothing in life that prepares you for it.”

Jonathan and two other toddlers wandered into the back yard of their day-care center after they apparently unlatched the yard’s gate, authorities said. One child died, and Jonathan and Melissa Dianne Polsfoot, then 20 months old, both suffered severe brain damage.

Today, after spending nearly half a million dollars on Jonathan’s medical expenses, which Kolbet’s insurance has covered, the only response the parents see in their son is that he cries when in pain, they said.

“I’m never going to hear ‘Mommy,’ Kolbet said as Jonathan wailed in the background. “This is my only child and I’m never going to hear him calling me ‘Mommy.’ ”

Weston, 30, said he tries not to think about what would have been. “I just block it out of my mind,” he said. “If I think about it, it’s too painful.”

Kolbet and Weston are suing the center’s owners, the county and state, contending that stricter regulation of the facility could have prevented the accident. That case is in court.