By Jane Luscombe
Family and friends clung to each other in desperation as paramedics worked to save a man's life today.
Just a short time before the man had been wading in thigh-deep water, setting out flounder nets with his companion. The pair thought they would be safe.
It is unclear exactly what happened after that, but before they knew it the two ended up in the main channel of Welcome Bay.
The current of the outgoing tide was strong, gripping them and quickly dragging them 200 metres from shore and it was pure luck the men were spotted.
People living in one of the houses on the shore were relaxing on their deck when they suddenly noticed the men being swept away. They ran to a nearby park, where Steve Rolls and Geoff Horgan had been messing about in their boat and were about to pull it onto dry land. Instead, they turned it around and raced out to rescue the men.
They managed to pull one on board and towed the other man alongside the boat.
“We were yelling at him, you're ok, just hang on,” says Geoff Horgan.
When they got to land, the man in the boat was seriously ill and his friend was unresponsive. The paramedics were unable to revive him.
The incident is the latest in a series of drownings involving people setting nets.
Towards the end of last year four men drowned in separate incidents, fishing the same stretch of beach near the mouth of the Waikato River.
Both groups were net fishing for mullet and in all of the cases no-one was wearing a life jacket.
3 News