Brett Bosley was Lake Tarawera's rock. Photo / Supplied
He was Lake Tarawera's rock - a hero everyone would go to for literally everything.
Brett Bosley was quite a man.
And before he died, he had the chance to see just what he meant to his close-knit community.
He was told in October last year he had terminal cancer. But the community was so desperate to get as much time with Bosley as they could, they raised $35,000 for an unfunded cancer drug to help prolong his life.
On Monday, the 62-year-old lost his year-long battle - exceeding the doctors' initial prognosis of only living about three months.
After spending all his life doing things for everyone else, it was his adored family who held his hand when he took his last breath.
"We said 'it's okay, you can go now. We love you,'" wife Carolyn told the Rotorua Daily Post.
Bosley was the Lake Tarawera Rural Fire Unit chief and active member for 34 years, recently being presented with a long-service and good conduct medal for his leadership.
He was a Fish and Game ranger, volunteer lakes inspector, member of the emergency response medical team, search and rescue volunteer, volunteer maritime officer and a Justice of the Peace.
He was also a builder, a plumber and an artist who often created pieces to donate to worthy causes.
If a fence needed fixing or a tap was leaking, the community would call "Bos", as he was affectionately nicknamed.
But it was in his real job that he was perhaps most influential for the community. Since 1984 he had run his small business Lake Security, and he was like a sheriff of the community.
Home and bach owners would pay him to check their properties and in true Bos style, he lived and breathed his role.
He caught burglars, found stolen boats and property, cornered crazed drug dealers, held offenders on the ground until police arrived and played detective using his security cameras by going through hours of video footage to track down suspicious people and vehicles.
His daughter, Elise, 23, beams with pride when she talks about her dad.
She said he saved a woman who was in distress many years ago after a concerned resident called him. Bos got police to go to the house but when they reported back that everything should be fine because no one was home, Bos didn't accept it. He went back to the house, kicked the door down, found the woman and got her medical help.
"He's an actual hero. He has saved so many lives."
Accompanied by his dog Jazz, he would check on houses and often catch burglars in the act.
Elise said her dad once bailed up a burglar but wasn't aware a co-offender was hiding nearby in bushes with a knife, about to pounce on Bos. Jazz barked at the bushes and alerted Bos and Bos was able to talk the man into giving himself up.
He was one of the rescue workers who searched Lake Tarawera when a father and his 6-year-old daughter drowned while kayaking.
"They were going to give up looking for the father's body but Dad said 'Nah, over here' and they found him."
Carolyn said her husband was so busy looking after everyone else, no one thought too much when his back started hurting in September last year.
Two years beforehand he had an aggressive melanoma cut out of his lip but he had checkups with doctors in the years that followed, who kept giving him the all-clear.
Carolyn said in hindsight, they should have insisted on scans and blood tests after the melanoma but no one ever suspected something would happen to Bos.
The backache turned out to be a large cancer mass that spread to his liver and lungs. It was stage 4 and he was told he only had a few months to live.
They were given the option of trying Keytruda, a new cancer drug to prolong his life. He was also offered Yervoy, a drug costing $20,000 a dose that builds the immune system, allowing the Keytruda to be more effective.
That's when the Lake Tarawera community took action. The Bos Welfare Trust was set up and locals donated cash as well as selling some of his artwork.
Just two weeks before he died, the community also arranged for Bos to have one last hunting trip. With son Wade, they helicoptered him into the bush and put him in a wheelbarrow - because his wheelchair didn't work in the bush - and he sat with his gun.
Despite not catching anything, Carolyn said he was so happy when Wade got a deer.
Carolyn said they would have been married 33 years next February.
"He didn't waste a second. He loved helping people, he loved Tarawera, he loved hunting and fishing and he loved his family. He gave so much but he would say 'I'm getting so much back'. He would cry and say I'm so humbled."
Fellow Tarawera resident and good friend, retired Rotorua coroner Wallace Bain, said Bosley was an integral part of our community and the love the locals had for him was expressed at his fundraising function last year.
"In my long years of living in communities, I've never experienced anything quite like it. Brett was a leader amongst the community. He was always the person you'd go to first if you needed any assistance or direction."
Bain said that in the Tarawera community, Bosley showed an extraordinary ability to reach out to people, understand their needs and know what was required for any particular situation.
"He is a rock behind the Tarawera community and in my memory, no person has been more committed to their community and devoted themselves to their community than Brett Bosley."
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