A WOMAN collapsed when her young husband’s lifeless body was pulled from the ocean – and at least four of his friends were treated for shock – in a holiday tragedy at a unpatrolled Hastings beach yesterday.
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Bathers, including an off-duty nurse, tried desperately to resuscitate the father-of-two before ambulances arrived at Bonny Hills’ Rainbow Beach about 10am.
But the 35-year-old Queenslander, who was on holiday with a group of other families, was pronounced dead in hospital.
Surfer Charles James, 28, said a little girl noticed the man’s body and ran to tell her father, who pulled him ashore with help from another young man.
“He was blue by the time they pulled him out of the water,” Mr James said.
“When his wife saw him she collapsed from shock.
“It was horrible – the poor family.”
Wauchope Bonny Hills Surf Life Saving Club life governor “Chalkie” Bob Smith first heard of the tragedy when Mr James ran to his nearby home for the club’s resuscitation equipment.
“I raced down there and opened the surf club to get out the little 4WD with the oxygen resuscitator and the defibrillator,” Mr Smith said.
“But by that stage the first ambulance had arrived at Big Vinegar [near Duchess Creek on Rainbow Beach] and I was told to direct the other two ambulances to the beach.
“At least four other members of the group were taken to hospital to be treated for shock but I recommended all 10 or so of them went.”
The man was taken to Port Macquarie Base Hospital but was pronounced dead on arrival.
Police do not know whether the man drowned, died after being hit on the head, suffered a broken neck, or had a heart attack.
The man had been on holiday with other families from Burleigh Cove in Queensland and was staying at Port’s Macquarie’s Sundowner Breakwall Tourist Park.
Police will prepare a report for the coroner.
