Fisherman’s wife sees death from shore in Bay
Sharon Salmons spent the ninth anniversary of meeting her husband driving back to Queenstown to plan his funeral.
Mark Salmons, 49, was flyfishing with a friend in thigh-deep water at Golden Bay’s Pakawau Beach on Boxing Day when he suddenly fell in to the ocean. His wife was reading on a deck chair on the shore when she picked up her binoculars to check on him.
She saw her partner of nearly a decade tumble into the water, briefly return to the surface, then disappear again.
Panicked, she frantically started wading out to help him. The bay was shallow and flat, the sun beating down from a cloudless sky, but Mark Salmons was quite far out and it took her 15 minutes to reach him.
‘‘A friend got there first. He was face down, I knew it had been too long.’’
A locator beacon was triggered and they attempted CPR in the water before dragging him back to firm land. A rescue helicopter was diverted to the scene, hovering above before they had made it back in.
After trying to revive him with the defibrillator, paramedics told Sharon Salmons there was ‘‘nothing there’’.
The couple married three years ago in the Cook Islands, a trip that ignited his passion for travel.
The cause of death was thought to be drowning, but his wife said he was a strong swimmer and spent his entire life by the ocean. He had a heart condition.