A guard of honour for Alex Scarrow outside Te Pōhue Fire Station on the day of his funeral. Scarrow, who died in a rafting accident, had been a member of his community's fire brigade. Photo / Paul Taylor
A guard of honour for Alex Scarrow outside Te Pōhue Fire Station on the day of his funeral. Scarrow, who died in a rafting accident, had been a member of his community's fire brigade. Photo / Paul Taylor
A friend desperately tried to save the life of popular volunteer firefighter Alex Scarrow before he drowned in a rafting accident in 2023.
The rafting buddy tried to keep Scarrow’s head above water with a paddle after their raft T-boned a large boulder and Scarrow became trapped in the waterwith a rope around his foot.
He also tried to cut the rope with an alcohol can after the only knife carried by their four-strong rafting party had been swept away.
But the attempt to cut the rope did not work and the current was too strong to allow Scarrow’s head to be kept above the water.
The friend, who was not named in a coroner’s report into Scarrow’s death, lost his balance and fell from the raft into the fast-flowing Mohaka River in Hawke’s Bay.
He later told the coroner that by that stage, Scarrow had sunk lower into the water and “did not look like he was fighting any more”.
The two other members of the party had already been washed downstream.
When the third friend reached them and told them Scarrow had become stuck, they all ran upstream but could not find a safe place to re-enter the water.
Scarrow’s body was later recovered by emergency services.
Coroner Ruth Thomas said in a findings report released today that Scarrow drowned in the river after his foot became entrapped in a rope.
She said a “lack of situational awareness” of the rock hazard, the lack of access to a knife and the group’s decision to drink alcohol while rafting were all factors that compounded and contributed to his death.
Swift water rescue expert Steve Glassey reviewed evidence about Scarrow’s death for the coroner.
He drafted and proposed a recreational rafting safety code, which Coroner Thomas included in her report, with a recommendation that organisations involved in rafting consider it.
They all wore personal flotation devices (PFDs) and put a locator beacon and a knife in a blue plastic barrel to keep them dry.
The group had a box of mixed bourbon drinks but one member of the group said they were not intoxicated and “we were just enjoying the good weather and a day off work”.
Blood tests found Scarrow had 130mg of alcohol per 100ml of blood in his system. The legal blood alcohol limit for driving is 50mg per 100ml.
Investigations found the “well-constructed” raft, paddles and the PFDs were in good condition.
However, the blue barrel containing the locator beacon and the knife had been ripped open by the water flow and its contents were lost.
“The one knife that had been taken on the trip had been washed away,” Coroner Thomas said. “The group were left with no effective cutting tool.”
Glassey’s report said that had a knife been carried on the PFD of at least one crew member, it was more likely that the rope could have been cut before Scarrow’s entanglement became “unrecoverable”.
Coroner Thomas recommended that knives be included in official lists of safety equipment for river rafting and kayaking.
She also recommended consultation within the river rafting sector about Glassey’s proposed safety code.
Ric Stevens spent many years working for the former New Zealand Press Association news agency, including as a political reporter at Parliament, before holding senior positions at various daily newspapers. He joined NZME’s Open Justice team in 2022 and is based in Hawke’s Bay. His writing in the crime and justice sphere is informed by four years of frontline experience as a probation officer.
