Family keep vigil for missing teen
Loved ones wait at spot where 14-year-old swept away
As the high sun glistens off the rippling blue sea, a family looks out and waits.
Dog-walkers stride briskly while the occasional jetski or small boat skims across whitecaps and an otherwise stunning view.
Fishermen cast into the same water where 14-year-old Jack Sutton was last seen.
Friends and family of the schoolboy sit under a white gazebo on camp chairs and beanbags. A man strums a guitar. Waiting is all they can do.
It is now four days since Jack went for a swim with a mate, taking advantage of the warm weather and bath-like sea temperatures. He has not been seen since.
“I’m just trying to channel my energy into bringing my boy home,” says mum Sue Sutton.
The teen’s loved ones have barely left Scarborough Beach in the peaceful Christchurch seaside community of Sumner since Monday afternoon.
The nightmare began when police officers knocked on the front door of the family’s home in the eastern suburb of Linwood about 4pm.
They were told that as Jack and his friend were swimming to shore in the water, chopped up by a strong nor-westerly, Jack disappeared from sight.
His mate rushed to shore and raised the alarm about 3.20pm.
Distraught family members arrived at the beach soon after where a large rescue effort, with Coastguard and Sumner Surf Life Saving Club, was under way.
After about 90 minutes, police suspended the search as the wind picked up.
But the family were angered that the official search was called off so soon.
“We’re pretty pissed off. Why aren’t they out there looking for him?” said a friend that evening.
They launched their own efforts, clambering over the rocks of Scarborough Heads and scouring the beach and shoreline, all night, and ever since.
“I’m not going home until he’s home,” said elder sister Magenta Sutton on Monday evening.
The following day, a local boatie took them out on the water, searching around Scarborough, to neighbouring Taylor’s Mistake, and out to Godley Heads.
Locals on kayaks and jetskis have chipped in to help.
Crusaders rugby coach and local resident Scott Robertson joined the hunt.
“We can’t thank the Sumner people enough for the marvellous things they have done,” Jack’s nana said yesterday.
Police said on Tuesday night that it was now a body recovery operation.
A Givealittle crowdfunding campaign launched to raise cash to put a light aircraft up to help look for Jack has so far raised nearly $8000.
Magenta Sutton described her brother as a “great swimmer” who usually swam at the closer New Brighton Beach. She didn’t know why he went to Sumner instead.
Linwood College principal Richard Edmundson said the tragedy had shocked the school. A specialist Ministry of Education team was ensuring pupils and staff got the support they needed, he said.
Water Safety New Zealand chief executive Jonty Mills warned that while water is the nation’s playground, it is “incredibly unforgiving and situations can develop quickly, often with tragic and fatal consequences”.
In 2017, there were 88 preventable drownings.
“Every preventable drowning leaves a family and a community devastated,” Mills said.
“When you are at the beach if you can, swim between the flags — there has never been a drowning fatality between the flags on a patrolled beach in New Zealand.”