Fisherman's favour repaid with the gift of life

MARTY SHARPE

When he noticed a fellow fisherman hadn't caught any fish, Paul Williams gave him one of his. A few weeks later the favour was repaid when the same fisherman pulled a drowning Mr Williams from the sea.

Mr Williams was fishing at the Wairoa River bar on Friday about midday when a large wave dragged him into deep water. The 26-year-old forestry student had just caught a kahawai and gave his rod to friend Andre Ngarangione before the wave took him.

"I yelled out for him to cast the line over me. I grabbed it for a couple of minutes. He said 'you feel like a kingy [kingfish] bro'. Then it snapped. I just got taken out to sea," Mr Williams said.

He couldn't swim but remembered once being told to lie on his back if he ever got in trouble.

"I managed to stay afloat. I was kicking. Half the time water was rushing over my face ... I felt like giving up and I was about to go under when I heard the boat coming out, so I continued kicking."

Alan "Futch" Couper and wife Andrea  who live in the only nearby house noticed police and ambulance vehicles on the beach. Mr Couper scanned the ocean through a telescope and spied Mr Williams' head bobbing about a kilometre from shore. He threw his dinghy on his truck and dashed to the river, picked up Sergeant Aubrey Ormond, and the two sped over the bar.

Mr Couper, 68, said Mr Williams was "on his last legs" when they got to him. "He was bloody lucky. His face was blue and he had a gutsful of water."

Mr Couper believes Mr Williams was in the water for about 40 minutes. He had swallowed a lot of water but after a checkup at hospital was discharged three hours later.

On Sunday, Mr Couper visited Mr Williams at home, advised him to take swimming lessons and offered to pay if Mr Williams could not afford them. "It was just so rewarding to get a hold of him. The last rescue I was on we pulled a body out of the river. That was horrible. This one was such a good result," Mr Couper said.

Mr Williams had seen Mr Couper on the bar about three weeks ago. "He was fishing there and wasn't catching anything. I had a few fish so said 'here you go, a fish for you mate'," he said.

He would "definitely" be taking swimming lessons  and would make sure Mr Couper was never short of fish.

Water Safety New Zealand's general manager' Matt Claridge' said Mr Williams did the right thing. In some situations even capable swimmers were best to just float until help arrived, he said. "If you tilt your head far enough back and use your hands in a paddling motion, you'll float for sure.

"Floating is a fundamental of learning to swim and the best way to conserve energy. "It sounds like this guy [Mr Williams] did everything right," Mr Claridge said.

- © Fairfax NZ News