A mother obsessed with posting her daily life’s minutiae on Twitter was busy tweeting about the birds in her back yard five minutes before her toddler drowned in the family pool — then kept right on tweeting about the horrifying news from the hospital ER.
Semiprofessional “mommy blogger” Shellie Ross, of Merritt Island, Fla., shocked her 5,000 regular Twitter readers when her daily stream of inane tweets turned into horrifying posts about her son Bryson’s death.
“Please pray like never before, my 2 yr old fell in the pool,” Ross, 37, who reviews products online, tweeted from Cape Canaveral Hospital less than an hour after making mundane comments about the fog and birds.
Her family was understanding about the posts.
“She did this on Twitter mostly because that is what she does for a living,” Bobby Ross, her brother-in-law, told The Post. “It’s the easiest way to tell all her friends.”
But the online community was shocked that Ross, who goes by the user name Military Mom, announced the tragedy on Twitter.
Ross deleted her tweets from before the accident and locked her account from public access yesterday. She didn’t answer her door or return a call for comment.
Before the Monday tragedy, Ross had sent dozens of tweets about her dogs, her chickens and Christmas-tree ornaments.
At 5:23 p.m. that day, Ross tweeted, “Fog is rolling in thick scared the birds back in the coop,” referring to the chickens.
Moments later, her 11-year-old son, Kris, came back from cleaning the coop without Bryson, setting off a frantic search, according to Lt. Bruce Barnett of the Brevard County Sheriff’s Office.
At 5:28 p.m., Kris called 911 saying his little brother was unconscious and floating in the pool as Ross attempted CPR.
Paramedics arrived at 5:32 p.m. and took him to Cape Canaveral Hospital at 5:55 p.m., records show.
Ross made her plea-for-prayers tweet at 6:12 p.m.
That was followed by a tweet at 8:08 p.m. declaring, “Remembering my million dollar baby,” with a picture of her tot. She then sent two more tweets.
The next day, she continued to tweet as readers questioned her account of events.
“I was outside with him and it took two seconds for him to slip away,” she posted. “I hope U never feel this pain u ass.”
Law enforcement was investigating.
“The Twittering is not an issue as far as the investigation is concerned,” Barnett told The Post. “She was Twittering while she was in the grieving room with other family members and a chaplain from the hospital.”
But Ross, wife of an Air Force officer with two other sons, was facing online scorn.
“If she didn’t want questions raised at such a painful time, perhaps she shouldn’t have tweeted immediately after he child died,” blogger Madison McGraw told Florida Today. “A child is dead because of his mother’s infatuation with Twitter.”
In response, Ross tweeted to McGraw, “Where [is], your heart b- – – -.”