Editorial: Water safety reminder from heroic mother's drowning at Tukituki River

Hawke's Bay Today News Editor James Ford. PHOTO / File.

News of the tragic incident of a mother drowning in Hawke's Bay will have no doubt sent shivers down every parent's spine.

Police named Amy Jenny Brown, of Taupo, as the woman whose body was recovered early yesterday morning, after she went missing at the Tukituki river mouth on Tuesday.

She drowned while trying to rescue one of two girls, aged 8 and 5, at the lagoon near Haumoana beach.

It is understood the five-year-old girl was Ms Brown's daughter, and the eight-year-old her stepdaughter.

The coastal community has paid touching tributes to Ms Brown, with many calling her a hero while flowers were left near the site.

Haumoana local Ashley Ormsby said Ms Brown acted with "a mother's instinct".

It is a devastating loss for the family involved and one that will no doubt rock the local community in Haumoana.

It also offers another humbling warning on how cautious we must be around water, however safe we may deem it to be.

Water Safety New Zealand has not yet added this drowning to its database, with the official 2018 preventable drowning toll at five.

In total there were 86 preventable drownings in 2017 and 78 in 2016.

We have all had our anxious moments in water that stick with us - I certainly remember mine vividly.

Safety, particularly when accompanied by young children, must always be the priority around water.

And this was another incident of a needless and tragic loss of life.

My thoughts are with Ms Brown's family.