Heart-stopping moment for mum
When Jessica Whyte was woken to the news that her son had been found floating in the sea, it felt like her heart went still.
She didn’t feel it beat again until she saw the 18-month-old at the campground reception. He was purple, cold and looked smaller than usual. But he was alive.
A local fisherman, Gus Hutt, had found her son, Malachi, floating in the sea at Matata Beach, near Whakatane, on October 26. The toddler was so still and lifeless, Hutt almost mistook him for a doll.
‘‘His face looked like porcelain with his short hair wetted down,’’ Hutt told the Whakatane Beacon, ‘‘but then he let out a little squeak and I thought, ‘oh God, this is a baby and it’s alive’.
‘‘He was floating at a steady pace with a rip in the water. If I hadn’t been there, or if I had just been a minute later I wouldn’t have seen him. He was bloody lucky but . . . it wasn’t his time.’’
Malachi had slipped out of his parent’s tent at Murphy’s Holiday Camp around 7am on the Friday and ran into the ocean.
Hutt later traced Malachi’s footsteps down to the water, about 15 metres away from where he’d been fishing.
The toddler usually slept past 8am, said Whyte, of Matamata. The sound of the waves might have woken him.
The camp manager woke Whyte at 7.30am to tell her the news but it didn’t register at first. It felt like a sick joke. ‘‘She was like ‘do you guys have a young child?’ Then she said ‘he’s been found in the water’.
‘‘It was horrible in between hearing that and seeing him. I don’t think my heart [beat] from hearing that to seeing him. I don’t think my heart worked.
‘‘It was scary but he was breathing, he was alive. Oh God, it was amazing seeing him. I gave him a big hug.’’
Malachi kept trying to fall asleep and Whyte kept him awake until emergency services arrived.
Whyte tearfully thanked Hutt, who had a few tears in his eyes, too, she said. She can’t thank him enough and hopes to visit him again.