Crash victim 'rock' everyone turned to

Photo / Bay of Plenty Times

The truck driver killed in a head-on collision in the Bay of Plenty this week has been described as "the rock everybody looked to".

Robin "Tom" Fong, 68, was coming home for breakfast on Tuesday when the light truck he was driving was in collision with a motorcycle coming the other way.

Mr Fong and the rider of the motorcycle died at the scene.

Mr Fong had been working at a family farm in Oropi.

As pictures of the crash scene were broadcast, Mr Fong's wife, Lynn, received worried phone calls from friends who recognised her husband's truck.

"Normally if he was going to be late he would have rung," Mrs Fong said from the family's Greerton home yesterday.

With a cup of coffee, and flanked by adult children Cherie Walter, Michelle Jacobs and Debbie, Rob, Rodney and Daniel Fong, Mrs Fong recalled receiving the news that her husband had been killed.

"It was unbelievable. It has just been such a shock," she said.

Mrs Fong said her husband was "such a presence".

"When he was in the room, you knew it."

Mr Fong's children described him as outgoing, generous, reliable, a family man, hard worker and a food lover.

Debbie Fong said she expected her father "to come walking in at any minute". Mrs Walter agreed.

"There's a big sense of missing him at the moment," she said.

Mr Fong was born in Fiji but moved to Tauranga when he was 23 and established himself as an accountant.

Rodney Fong said his father was the hardest-working and most generous man he knew.

"He was pretty much the rock everybody looked to.

"Everybody loved him, needed him. He has always been the one to turn to."

At 68, Mr Fong continued to run his accounting business Taxation Consultants but spent most mornings at "the farm" - a lifestyle complex laden with avocado, passionfruit and tamarillos.

He had just finished building a shed, as he and Mrs Fong planned to sell their Greerton home and retire.

A service will be held at St Mary's Catholic Church on Monday.