Oamaru double-fatal crash: Dead man remembered as having 'heart of gold'

Oamaru residents Grant Robert Rawson and Erin Louise Sheehy died when the ute they were travelling in rolled in Ardgowan Rd. Photo / Kayla Hodge

The man who died in a crash in Oamaru is being remembered as a fourth-generation beekeeper with a heart of gold.

Oamaru residents Grant Robert Rawson (51) and Erin Louise Sheehy (48), who was known as Erin Ross, died when the ute they were travelling in rolled in Ardgowan Rd, between Homestead and Redcastle Rds on Tuesday night.

They were the sole occupants of the vehicle.

Mr Rawson's mother, Noelene Rawson, said her son was brought up in Oamaru, where he attended Waitati Boys High School.

Later, he trained as a panelbeater before becoming a fourth generation beekeeper when he took over the family beekeeping business about a decade ago.

He learned his trade from his father, Bob Rawson.

The younger Mr Rawson also left behind a 16-year-old daughter whom he "absolutely cherished" and his sister.

The death was tragic and had torn a hole through a happy family.

"You never, ever think you're going to bury your children," Mrs Rawson said.

She described her son as a quiet fellow who got along with everybody.

"He was so good to us, he was so thoughtful," Mrs Rawson said.

He would cut firewood for his parents and do anything they asked.

When he was younger, he went to Boy Scouts and used to give Mrs Rawson soap he had made, wrapped up with stars on it.

"He was very, very sick as a baby and we just about lost him.

"He went to Dunedin and he had tubes in his back draining his lungs.

"When he went to school and they had swimming, he'd strip off and people would say 'what's that big mark on your back?' and he told every one of them, 'that's where I was shot.'"

"I was shocked," Mrs Rawson said.

"I just have a laugh and think about that all the time."

Waitaki District Council road safety co-ordinator Jason Evered Ardgowan Rds said the speed limit in Ardgowan Rd was dropped to 60km in 2020 but the crash site was not an area he had known to be an issue.

It is the second fatal crash in Oamaru this year, after a 25-year-old Christchurch man was killed, when the car he was in crashed into a fence in Thames Highway, opposite Weaver St, on February 19.