Marie Shone had taken a photograph of the moment on that January evening not long before a wave shifted the log under her 11-year-old grandson’s feet.
She rushed to pull him out from under the log but in those brief moments, wave movement had lifted the log and rolled it over Oliver twice and he was tragically left with unsurvivable head injuries.
A coroner’s report describes the final moments of Oliver’s life on January 25, 2023.
Coroner Peter Ryan wrote in his report that Shone took Oliver on a trip to Gisborne from his home in Wellington because it was where his mother grew up.
Oliver, who had autism, asked to go to the beach after dinner and was having a great time playing with a big stick about 7.10pm.
“He then found a big log, one of many which littered the beach due to the poor weather conditions over the past few weeks, and wanted to play on it,” Ryan wrote.
Shone noticed small movement with the log but considered it to look stable.
Cyclone Hale had left logs, forestry slash and other wood debris along the beach in the wake of the flooding.
When a bigger wave came in and knocked Oliver off the log, bystanders immediately came to Shone’s assistance and helped pull Oliver out of the water.
Luckily, several doctors and paramedics having a meeting at the Waikanae Surf Club were able to assist with resuscitation efforts,
Despite their efforts, as well as CPR and further resuscitation efforts at Gisborne Hospital, Oliver could not be revived.
The cause of death was traumatic brain injury due to blunt force trauma, according to the post-mortem examination.
Oliver Shone pictured in a firefighter costume at preschool.
Marie Shone told The Gisborne Herald Oliver had already climbed on to the log and jumped off once before without incident.
“It all just happened so quickly and so unexpectedly. There were no big waves or anything like that - things seemed reasonable to me,” Shone said.
“I said to him let’s go to Midway, so I was standing right beside him in earshot. I did sense that he got back on the log, but I don’t remember anything after that. I didn’t hear him call out or anything.”
She said the part of the beach they were on was not covered in logs and appeared to have already been cleaned up because they could see logs placed into piles
Council work to clear debris from the Midway section of the beach had started only two days before Oliver died, January 23, with work to clear the Waikanae section to be completed by January 27.
Shone said the log that killed Oliver was a “cut” pine log from a forestry block.
“It’s coming up to summer, I think we need to be educating people and I think the forestry [industry] needs to be a bit more stringent in how they deal with the slash.”
Eastland Wood Council chair Julian Kohn said there were always ways operational forest management could improve and the industry had been working on improvement for years.
“The idea that you are going to stop all woody debris and all sediment coming out of our waterways is an impossibility,” Kohn said.
He said he could only speak for Eastland Wood Council members, and acknowledged some other forestry companies were engaging in “inappropriate” practices.
Forests were a very good way of stopping sediment and soil movement in the community and the industry was working closely with the community and the council on “right tree in the right place”, he said.
The council investigation described by the coroner found most or all of the material on Waikanae Beach after Cyclone Hale originated from pine forestry blocks in the upper reaches of the Waimatā River, which feeds into the Turanganui River.
At the time of the coroner’s report, the council had not ruled out the possibility that some of the material on the beach came from the Waipaoa River mouth.
According to the council report, logs on Gisborne beaches had been an ongoing issue and substantial quantities of logs, slash and debris from forestry harvesting activities regularly washed up along the coastline during storms since large-scale harvesting of maturing pine forests in the region began in 2010.
Before Oliver’s death, the council was not aware of any injuries or fatalities relating to logs and forestry debris on the beaches in the region.
Having considered the circumstances and taking into account measures implemented by Gisborne District Council and the ministerial inquiry, Ryan found there were no comments or recommendations he could usefully make.
