Waikato River Missing Person

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    Posted: 22 Feb 2021 at 12:37pm
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https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/124312257/search-resumes-for-jet-skier-missing-overnight-in-waikato-river
I heard chatter on the radio whilst going out over the Manukau Bar yesterday, was unsure at the time, whether it was a bar crossing or not?
Sounds like it was nearer the bridge.
 
Not a nice feeling heading out when someone has lost their life nearby.
Any updates on this? Was he found?
 
Why choose either diving or fishing when you can do both. Besides crayfish tail is very good bait!!
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Post Options Post Options   Likes (0) Likes(0)   Quote The Tamure Kid Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 22 Feb 2021 at 7:59pm
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Sadly, media reported an hour ago that a body had been located about 2pm today in the search for the missing man. Condolences for his family. There was a rahui in place during the search down to Port Waikato, so presumably that will now be formalised out of respect for the person lost.
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Post Options Post Options   Likes (0) Likes(0)   Quote Reel Deal Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 22 Feb 2021 at 10:42pm
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I lost a mate n the Waikato river in Hamilton. Weird thing is we couldn’t find his body for over a week. We and his family went up and down the river and they camped at the ramp. He should have bloated a while back but only on his birthday he popped up in front of his old mans dingy with his hoodie cover his face. All very weird but that’s what happened. As a kid some kids down pukete bridge tied themselves to a rope to a tree over river with life jackets on. Seemed a fun idea till science kicked in and the force of the water pulled one straight to the bottom and only could get the body by cutting through rope. Any water way not just bars can pull you through to the other world. 
The gods do not subtract from the allotted span of men's lives the hours spent on fishing - Assyrian Proverb
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Post Options Post Options   Likes (0) Likes(0)   Quote The Tamure Kid Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 23 Feb 2021 at 10:02am
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sorry to hear that story. It must haunt you to this day.

I spent a few years living in Hamilton and there were a number of drownings during that time, at various points on the river - including a tragic number of school kids who just went for a swim with mates and never came home. 

The water is quite foreboding to my eyes, swirling and the banks tangled with tree limbs, and deceptively powerful - I once did a triathlon that included a swim leg down the river and they had to have people to grab all the swimmers who got swept past the pull out point after they left the swim across the current too late.

Not a piece of water to be underestimated, that's for sure - but a magnet in the humid Waikato summer.

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Post Options Post Options   Likes (0) Likes(0)   Quote CrayZfish Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 23 Feb 2021 at 12:45pm
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Some horrifying personal encounters there. Glad this boatie was found, it will help the family with closure. I wonder how far from the incident location he ended up?
There's certainly a lot of hazards below the water unseen. My uncle talked years ago of a mate that jumped off the bridge and ended up in a large fridge. Could have ended badly.
 
Hopefully the message gets out the importance of buckling up the life jacket too, an open jacket is as useless as a bike helmet with strap undone.
 
Why choose either diving or fishing when you can do both. Besides crayfish tail is very good bait!!
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Post Options Post Options   Likes (0) Likes(0)   Quote The Tamure Kid Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 23 Feb 2021 at 2:17pm
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Yes, after one of the drownings of a school kid right in central Hamilton about 2004, I interviewed for the paper the mother of a boy who'd died in almost exactly the same circumstances near Pukete Bridge nearly 10 years earlier. She hoped by speaking out it would get young people to take heed of the warning signs at regular swimming spots.

It was an extremely difficult interview and I'll always remember the look of grief on her face.
I did a similar one interviewing a hunter who accidentally shot a guy who was like a god-son to him, after a new spate of similar accidents in the roar. Harrowing stuff. They just want to stop other people having to go through the same thing.
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Post Options Post Options   Likes (0) Likes(0)   Quote Big -Dave Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 23 Feb 2021 at 8:55pm
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I recall helping in the sea for the boy in 2004..family were distraught...police said the body will float in x amount of days, meantime the family were upset no one was looking, so we did...
you can't fix an idiot with duct tape, but it does muffle them for a while...
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Post Options Post Options   Likes (0) Likes(0)   Quote The Tamure Kid Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 23 Feb 2021 at 9:25pm
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Big respect to you for that. Not knowing what you were going to find, eyes on stalks.
Just knowing someone was looking would have given the family some comfort.
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Post Options Post Options   Likes (1) Likes(1)   Quote Phantom Menace Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 24 Feb 2021 at 9:23am
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My experience with this sort of thing is not related to the Waikato but many years ago a 19 yr old died on a SCUBA diving charter at the Hen and Chicks.  Official search did not find him and the weather cut up badly so had to be called off.

His family asked some of us to help out with a private search the following weekend (some of us had been on the same charter with him).  We worked out where he had been diving and dropped lines to mark out an initial area to search then six of us swam in parallel searching with the plan being for the group to pivot once we reached the lower line and then swim another section.  We also had two divers with scooters doing "out and back" runs from the deeper line.

I found him during the first pass.

It was a tough experience. There was only a slim chance we would find him so I was kind of prepared but not actually expecting it. His family had held a memorial service during the week and once they had the body they held a full funeral - very haerd on everyone but they had closure.
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Post Options Post Options   Likes (1) Likes(1)   Quote The Tamure Kid Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 24 Feb 2021 at 11:10am
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That is a very moving story. Thank you for sharing. I salute your efforts at that harrowing time.
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