Transcript
TAMAIVA TUAVERA: It wasn't far out. It was at the pier at Avana Passage. There is a pier there that the kids go swimming at. It was high tide and there was a bit of a current. Mario was calling out, 'Uncle, uncle they are drowning, they are drowning.' I looked and saw one of the girls disappear underwater, about 30 metres away from where I was. I don't think these girls can swim. I think their ages were nine, eight and seven.
DON WISEMAN: The would have been familiar with the area though wouldn't they?
TT: No they were from New Zealand - Cook Islanders on school holiday. What had happened was they had drifted away from the pier. For a non swimmer 5 -10 metres it might as well be 100 or a mile away from safety. I saw them in trouble and one disappeared under the water and that is when I reacted. I didn't have time to take my shoes off. I just ran and dived in the water and swam out to them, thinking that yes because I'd been in the water there before Ii could stand. I thought, yea h I'll go there, I'll save them. And hullo by the time I got there there was two of them under water. The oldest one was still bobbing up and down so I grabbed them by their hair and pulled them up and then I realised that I can't stand up and then panic could come in your head and you think, oh my gosh, you're out of breath and I had one child in each hand. The oldest one was holding on to me from behind. Then I realised I couldn't stand up, so I tried to feel for the bottom of the thing and I touched it then I knew then that if I kept going I could just poke my nose out of the water and that happenend. I encouraged them to throw up and the two girls that was under water I was squeezing their stomach and making them throw up and they did throw up, but they had drank a lot of water and I realised that I couldn't get back to shore. My nose was the only thing that was sticking out of the water, on tiptoe, and then I thought OK I'll brave it and try and get them back to the pier, which is about 15 metres away. I took two steps and I disappeared under water again and again that's when panic started again. One of them said, ' oh Uncle I can't breathe'. I said 'yes you can because you're talking to me'. I said when you talk you're breathing. So keep talking and if you want to cry and scream do it. I was hugging them and I realised again that I can't get ashore. We stood there for about a minute and a half, me trying to figure out how I could get these girls to safety. Then a tourist came along on a motorbike. Thank God for that. I called out to him. By that time the boy had recovered his voice and he's screaming at the tourist to get in the water and help me with the three girls. He took his shirt off and then he dove in and he swam towards us and I was so grateful for that. First I passed one girl to him and then he swam back to the pier, put the girl on the ladder, held on the ladder and then he came back again and grabbed another girl and when he swam away I made my way back with the third girl, who was the oldest girl.
DON WISEMAN: They must have been very very happy, at that point, those girls.
TT: Oh, you could see the relief on their face and even for me I am the member of parliament from my village and to think that we could have lost three little lives that day. I was just thinking of that, after the fact. To me it was nothing. Like OK I jumped in the water, but when everybody started talking to me, saying to me that you know, 'Tama you potentially stopped a tragedy happening in our village' that's when I realised that three lives had been saved, because you know the two that was under water by the time that I got there I just grabbed them by their hair and [when I] realised I can't stand up it made it worse. That's the day I'll probably remember for a long time.
DW: You were a lance corporal in the New Zealand army. That came to some use out there did it?
TT: No, no I was a corporal in the army. That's training, you're in a situation, you don't panic. You think and you deal with it. We've always said 'assess the situation and then deal with it. Don't panic.' That's where the discipline came in. That was a very dangerous time for those three kids, and for myself, when I started drinking water I was thinking wow [do I] make a decision of letting them go and swimming bck or what.
DW: What are you saying to people? Because you've issued a statement calling on people to be a bit more careful with their kids, haven't you?.
TT; Yes well now we've realised that, we have put up signs at the pier, that don't just let your kids come down here and swim, because that's what's been happening. With Christmas coming up it'll be hot again and that place will be packed with kids every day and you hardly see any adults there. It's fine when it's low tide. Kids can stand and there's quite a few of them, but at high tide that day with hardly anybody there is that danger. So we must put up signs around there.
DW: Well congratulations. You did a good job, a great job.
TT: Yeah I realised _ I will tell you when i was going home [after fishing] my first plan was to come home and clean my fish at my house but then I decided I didn't want all that smelly scale around my house so I turned my truck around and went to Moku's boat ramp. Yeah I feel that I was supposed to be there that day.
