Shane O'Neill was a fisherman, a footballer and a butcher, but above all he was a father.
He rarely went drinking with his footy team, preferring a night at home with his fiancee and young sons, or a quiet evening fishing. And when his two sons, Riley, 4, and Travis, 15 months, fell off the Tathra Wharf late on Tuesday into black and choppy seas, he dived straight in after them.
The townships of Bega and Tathra were in mourning yesterday after the deaths of Mr O'Neill and his boys. Stacey Lambert, 24, his high school sweetheart, faces life without the man she was due to marry in March, and their children.
It was twilight on Tuesday, probably a little after 8pm, when the boys fell from the wharf where their father was fishing.
Robert Brown, a Canberra man and the recent owner of a caravan in the area, was also on the wharf that night. When the boys fell, Mr O'Neill threw himself after his sons, Mr Brown said.
A protective services officer for the Australian Federal Police, Mr Brown waited only to strip off his clothes and boots before following them into the sea.
He would tell his rescuers that the elder son had been playing on the brother's pram, causing them to topple from the wharf's edge.
The night was fast darkening, and 20-knot winds had stirred up a 1.5m swell. Only 500m away, five members of the Tathra Surf Life Saving Club had gathered for a meeting.
At 8.22pm they received a call that two children and a number of adults needed rescuing.
Within three minutes, club president Scott Meaker and Tony Rettke arrived at the wharf.
There, they found Mr Brown struggling to keep his head above water, grasping onto a child's booster seat corralled into use as a makeshift float.
"Rob was just groaning," Mr Rettke said.
"He wasn't calling for help, but he was just groaning with every breath. He was treading water but just holding on."
The two lifesavers helped Mr Brown onto the wharf. But in the darkness they could not see Mr O'Neill or his sons. They were later spotted by torchlight floating face down under the wharf.
Mr Meaker jumped in and swam beneath the wharf, negotiating its gnarled pylons.
Helped by Mr Rettke, he carried the children up a ladder at the wharf's end. Mr Rettke's 19-year old son Shayne, recently arrived on the scene, remained in the sea with the body of Mr O'Neill.
"I stayed in the water with the father on my bodyboard, trying to keep him afloat, because there was no hope for us trying to get him up the ladder," Shayne said.
About 10 minutes later Mr Rettke's 21-year old son Cameron and another club member ferried Mr O'Neill to the beach on an inflatable rescue boat.
Onshore, Cameron Rettke performed CPR on Mr O'Neill for about 20 minutes until an ambulance arrived. He was pronounced dead at the scene.
Mr O'Neill and his family lived in Kalaroo, between Bega and Tathra.
Locals yesterday described him as a warm, caring father, passionate about fishing and the outdoors.
Mitch Creary, his coach at the Bega Roosters and a former first-grade footballer for Manly, said the 28-year old and his fiancee were a "really close, a really good couple".
"They weren't out every Friday night drinking, they were hard working. He would have come in here about two or three times a year," said Mr Creary, the owner of the Commercial Hotel, across the road from the butcher shop where Mr O'Neill had worked for the past 15 years.
"He's a really good diver," Mr Creary said. "It must've been the cold water, that's what's so different here."
The owner of Kydd's Butchery, Allan Wheatley, where Mr O'Neill worked, said he was "a terrific bloke, absolutely terrific."
"(He was) someone that would do anything for anyone, who just loved the outdoors, loved fishing, loved camping, loved diving, loved football.
"He lived in the water, he dived for lobsters ... when that little kid went in the water he would have busted himself trying to getting him out."
Mr O'Neill's children were regulars in the store, Mr Wheatley said. "They used to hang around here ... he cherished them."
Police Local Area Commander, Superintendent Mick Willing, said details of the tragedy remained unconfirmed.
Mr O'Neill played second row for the Bega Roosters.
Bruised and cut up after being bashing up against barnacled pylons, Mr Brown was treated on Tuesday night at Bega Hospital and discharged yesterday morning.
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