'Never underestimate the sea'

A perfect summer's day at a remote gorgeous beach, a happy family group, alluring surf – and a hidden deadly current. What happened to the Cruickshank family in January is horrifying, but versions of it are repeated all over New Zealand every summer. Sunday reporter Kristin Hall talks to Donna Cruickshank and asks – how can this be prevented?

Crashing waves, the cry of seagulls, a gentle breeze. The sound of the ocean is one universally associated with calm and peace. It puts babies to sleep, people press shells to their ears just to feel closer to the sea, but for Donna Cruickshank, it’s a sound that haunts her.

“You know, that sound in a shell of the water? I can’t. That was the sound in my ears as I was trying to get back up to the top to get another breath. I can’t.”

On January 18, Donna lost her 15-year-old son Samuel, and her husband Ian in a tragic double drowning that could have been even worse. After a dismal summer punctuated by storms and cyclones, Donna, Ian and their teenage kids Samuel, Jamie, Ben and Isabella, as well as Isabella’s boyfriend Ethan Goddard, had headed out to remote Opoutere Beach in the Coromandel for a much longed for swim.

“That was our third time going and staying there… It had been really wild because Cyclone Hale had gone through the weekend before, but it was calming down and so we were thinking cool, go to the beach… go for a dip, do some sunbathing, come home.”

It had been a beautiful Coromandel day – a bright, clear sky over the stretch of white sand and dense forest that makes Opoutere so special. A 15-minute walk from the DOC carpark, with patchy cell reception and zero infrastructure, it’s remote, but that’s all part of the appeal.

A group had just got out of the water when the Cruickshanks and Ethan went in.

“We all noticed how really, really strong the current was," says Donna. "And Isabella and Ian and me kind of stopped probably knee deep and were talking about it… We had looked to see if there was that calm space in the waves, thinking is this a rip? But there wasn’t a calm space so we thought… it’ll be fine.”

Donna says she was barely thigh-deep when the force of the water took hold. The boys, who ran in ahead, as teenagers do, had already been swept way out to sea. The family were separated in seconds.

“The current kind of pushed me off balance and hauled me out really fast and I realised I couldn’t reach the bottom. I could hear Isabella screaming… I could see other people on the beach. I could see them looking at me and I thought I’m gonna die and they’re just going to watch me. Like, why is nobody coming?”

What followed was 30 minutes of horror as most of Donna’s family, one by one, struggled back to shore. Twelve-year-old Jamie, the only one with a boogie board, made it to the beach first, and began the frantic race to find help.

Then, after being battered by the waves for the longest ten minutes of her life, came Donna, dragged to dry land by a stranger.

Donna’s daughter Isabella came next. Nineteen years old and just through her first year of uni, she was barely conscious and vomiting water. Ian Cruickshank, Donna’s beloved husband of nearly 23 years, washed up not long after, lifeless in the shallows.

As a pair of rescuers raced to Ian’s aid, Ben Cruickshank and Isabella’s boyfriend Ethan were being brought in by yet another heroic stranger. Robin Richardson, an IT specialist visiting Opoutere with his family, had grabbed his 6-year-old’s boogie board and fought the waves to rescue the pair from the rough, deep waters. Ethan wasn’t breathing, and had to be helicoptered to hospital in a critical condition. He survived, but others weren’t so lucky.

After nearly an hour of CPR, it was clear Ian’s life would not be able to be saved, but Donna could barely focus on her husband’s death, she was still racing between her children, and fearing for her smiling, cheeky 15-year-old Samuel, who was still out at sea.

“I was thinking there is no way, there is no way that he will still be okay, and nobody had said anything to me at that point, but I knew.”

Samuel’s body was found further up the coast near Pauanui three days later, but Donna never got to see her son again.

“He’d been in the water too long… I said to the funeral director, is there any way we can see just his hair or just something? And they talked it through and just said no.

“We had the lid of his casket brought here and all of his friends came over and we all wrote on the inside of the lid, because that was the closest that we could get to him.”

The Cruickshank's story is one of remarkable survival and loss, but it is also one repeated in New Zealand every year, without fail – and with growing frequency. Our drowning toll is set to be the worst in 20 years, with 97 projected deaths by year-end, according to Water Safety NZ.

Were the deaths of Ian and Samuel preventable? Donna certainly believes there are things that could have helped. At the time of the drownings, there was no signage whatsoever warning of the frequent dangerous rips at Opoutere, and like 98 percent of New Zealand beaches, Opoutere isn’t patrolled by Surf Lifesaving New Zealand. A sign has since been put up by the local campground. Opoutere Coastal Camp co-owner Andrew Orr says he’d love to see more signage, as well as monitoring of the beach, particularly on busy days.

“We’d love anything that could make it safer for people on rough days, but we’re told if there were going to be more resources, there are about 20 other beaches that would be higher on the list.”

He says camp managers have been working with Surf Life Saving Whangamatā to get more lifesaving equipment at the beach.

“We don’t want another drowning to happen here ever again.”

Onemana rural fire chief Jo Adams, a local of 62 years, doesn’t want lifesavers permanently stationed at the beach, but would like to see it monitored, so the beach can be closed when it’s dangerous. He says he told two children to get out of the water while doing a fire patrol just a few days before Ian and Samuel’s deaths.

“I’d chased a couple of young ones out of the water a few days earlier because it was too rough. I’m not a surf lifesaver but I could see what was gonna happen if it went pear shaped. Two or three days later it went pear shaped.”

He says he’s been asking to have the beach monitored for the last five years, to no avail.

“Someone from Surf Lifesaving – we’ve got Onemana, we’ve got Whangamatā – needs to come out and put the signs up that says the beach is closed, or it’s open, beware of the rips.”

Surf Lifesaving New Zealand says that as part of a report to the Coroner on Ian and Samuel Cruickshank's deaths, National Coastal Safety Manager Dr Mick Kearney has recommended that a full coastal risk assessment be conducted at Opoutere Beach to determine whether a Lifeguard Service is required.

“If this is a recommendation, then SLSNZ will apply to Waikato Regional Council, through its long-term plan, for the additional money needed to add Opoutere Beach without impacting other lifeguard services in the region,” SLSNZ says.

SLSNZ says that while it doesn’t have the authority to close a beach or prohibit people from swimming at beaches, Dr Kearney’s report also recommended that, as a minimum, beach safety signs and public rescue equipment (PRE) are installed at Opoutere Beach as soon as possible. Currently the only sign on the beach was put there by the local campground, along with a rescue board.

“SLSNZ has engaged with Whangamatā SLSC, a number of local stakeholders and Thames Coromandel District Council to provide support and advice on signage design, location, and on the most suitable PRE to place at the beach in time for the summer season,” a spokesperson says.

“In addition, SLSNZ understands that a series of safety education sessions for campground residents will be provided by Whangamatā SLSC during the busy summer period. The SLSNZ Whangamatā Search and Rescue Squad will also be on stand-by to respond to any request to attend to incidents at Opoutere Beach by New Zealand Police, should it be required.”

For Donna, there are so many things she wishes she had known, like the potential effects of cyclones on the ocean, and the fact that not all rips look the same. The family, like most New Zealanders, had known to look for a calm space between the surf. “That is your sign. Don’t go there, that’s dangerous. And we looked for that and there was just surf as far as the eye could see,” says Donna.

“What we didn’t know was the effect that a cyclone can have on the beach floor… Don’t assume that the beach that you go to is the same beach that it was before that cyclone. You don’t know what has happened under the water. If there’s a really strong current, please get out.”

Donna says she’d love to see an app developed that gives live information on the conditions and safety levels at Kiwi beaches, particularly for those that aren’t patrolled.

Currently the Safeswim website provides that information for all 92 lifeguarded beaches across New Zealand, along with non-lifeguarded beaches in the Auckland and Northland regions, but Surf Life Saving New Zealand’s Head of Coastal Safety and Research Adam Wooler says it’s looking to extend this to all beaches in the country, as well as developing an app to make the information more accessible.

“As an app, it will also have the capability to deliver safety information through ‘push’ notifications. For example, safety warnings might be issued when waves become large or if rip currents become more hazardous. Additionally, it could notify users about strong offshore winds, which are particularly dangerous for stand-up paddleboards and other watercraft.”

Wooler says SLSNZ is also working with NIWA to create an AI-based rip identification tool using phone cameras, which would be accessed through the Safeswim app. Wooler says while the project didn’t receive the required government funding after the first application, it’s working with the University of Waikato to submit another one.

At Donna’s home in the tiny town of Takapau, things are much quieter than they were a year ago. With her oldest kids at university, it’s now just her and youngest Jamie in the house Ian built when the kids were little.

Donna carries two stones in her pockets, one from Ian’s grave and one from Samuel’s, wherever she goes. One is big like Ian’s hand, and one is small like Samuel’s when he was a boy. ‘Sam Bear’, a teddy bear mascot dedicated to Samuel’s memory, also makes the occasional appearance at the family home.

“The Sam Bear is a white-ish bear that has Samuel’s name and dates embroidered on his feet. The college kids have done this themselves. He goes to school every day with them on the bus and anybody that’s sad can take the Sam Bear with them. He gets carted around school. He even had his own school photo. They dress him up in all sorts of things and it’s just lovely. Sometimes I’ll drop Jamie off at the bus and see teenagers standing there, and one of them is holding Sam Bear.”

The Cruickshanks had loved the beach, and spent most of their summer holidays digging holes, collecting shells and playing in the waves. They were capable and confident in the water, but that didn’t stop the worst from happening on January 18. Donna wants Kiwi whanau to learn from her family’s story, and to never underestimate the sea.

“If you’re even a little bit hesitant, get out. Please.”

For more on this story, watch Sunday, tonight at 7.30pm, TVNZ 1 or TVNZ+.