Like this:

Sean pulled a dead man out of the Wangi Falls plunge pool yesterday. He was swimming over to one of the waterfalls with the boys, wearing his goggles and spotted him lying face down on the bottom of the pool, about 12 foot under water. The boys were with him unfortunately and Oscar has just told me he said to them “Oh, this is not good. Boys go and get mummy and tell her to go to the emergency phone.” Then he dove down, picked him up and swam him back to the bank. I was actually sitting out on our picnic rug, reading my book and happened to glance up and saw Sean bringing a person in and blowing in his mouth. I was in disbelief and immediately scanned for the boys, fearing the worst, but thankfully spotted them swimming behind him. I jumped up and ran over to him and asked if he wanted me to run to the emergency call device. He told me he had found him on the bottom of the pool and off I ran, quite a long way uphill to the kiosk. It was the sprint of my life and when I finally got there the bloody ECD didn’t work. At least it got an alarm of some sort going, even though they couldn’t hear what I was saying. A few seconds later the Rangers called the kiosk to get the details. Eventually, I ran back down and saw a heap of people huddling round and giving CPR. The boys, bless their souls, had listened to their daddy and were sitting a few metres away from the scene on our rug. After a quick chat to Sean to give him the update, I had a brief look at the guy through all the people. He looked a goners. Blue lips. Eyes only the slightest bit open. Spirit well and truly gone. I went and sat with the boys and answered their myriad of questions about dead people and what everyone was doing to him. We waited for ages for the Ranges turned up with their oxygen tank and gear, then soon after the NT police from Batchelor, who got straight onto their sat phone. I then packed up our gear and headed back up to our campsite with the boys, leaving Sean down there to talk to the police.

Sean had dragged him out at 4:10 and they were still CPRing him at 5pm when we left. About 10-15 minutes later we saw the Care Flight chopper fly in and land in the car park. Apparently the ambulance from Batchelor had also turned up in the meantime. Unfortunately they never did revive him. He’d obviously been under for too long. I actually remember seeing him hanging around the stairs at the entrance to the pool when I first went in with the boys. He had a snorkelling mask on, but no mouthpiece. Then we swam out to the middle of the pool – the sandy bit – and I remember seeing him there too. It appears that he had tried to swim out to the waterfall, not realising how deep it was and just couldn’t swim back up. He obviously had not made too much commotion as there were quite a few people there and no one noticed anything. I then swam back to the shore with the boys, hopped out to get Sean, had a brief chat with him before he went in and a few minutes after that they started their swim to waterfall. So the guy would’ve been under for anywhere from a couple of minutes up to a max of 20, I reckon. It must’ve been a while, though, because his friends were anxiously looking for him on the shore and one of them had actually borrowed Sean’s goggles to try to find him but had swum over to the other waterfall and not in the direction of the one Sean was taking the boys. Sadly! I guess it was his time and that’s all that could be done. No one will ever know exactly what happened to him. He was 29 and from Taiwan, travelling with his girlfriend and another couple. It was them that Sean and I were most worried about. We’re hoping the police looked after them. Sean gave the friend a hug and told him that we could make them some dinner and they could stay with us, and told the police the same thing but they told us they’d put them up in Batchelor. The friend said he just wanted to stay with his mate and thanked him for the offer in very broken English. Poor souls. Not a good end to their holiday. And having to go back home to face the parents.

How fickle life is. How quickly it can be taken away. No warning. No alarm. Just here one second and gone the next. How easily it can happen to anyone. Never take life for granted. Be grateful for every moment we have for it can be gone in a flash.