They were enjoying the water with 11-year-old Ryan Teasdale but their friend never made it home.

On Friday Mr Magro returned to the site but the body of water was gone. All that remained were flowers marking a devastating loss.

Read more: Hearts break for Ryan’s family after Unanderra tragedy

‘’Yesterday, you couldn’t see that drain … all over that road, all of this was water, it was massive,’’ Mr Magro said.

‘’So if someone’s playing along here they just think it’s a massive big pool, they don’t know there’s a drain there and it would have been whirling.

‘’Cause there was just too much [water] there, at the end of the day he wouldn’t have known, who knows.’’

Ryan was last seen about 4.30pm on Thursday playing with a group of children before disappearing. 

Emergency crews searched well into the night, before his body was found on Friday.

In the aftermath of the tragedy, when people start searching for answers, Mr Magro pondered the hidden dangers of the popular site.

‘’We back onto a massive storm water and if you actually caged it, it creates hassles for everything else, because the amount of rubbish that does build up - whereas that’s free flowing so I understand you need to act on, you know, precautions and things like that,’’ he said.

Read more: Looking for Ryan the saddest task for searchers

‘’However, something’s happened so you sort of need to see that council has to do something about it. I think a grate or a cage or something like that … but again it’s another job for council.

‘’They would have to do a bigger pipe [with a] cage but all the rubbish is still gonna block up on this side but there is still gonna be some kind of flow.

‘’If it does block up in time … if we have another rain like we did, where’s the water gonna go? It’s just gonna build up more and end up going through more storm water drains down the road.’’

On Friday afternoon Mr Magro and his children Lucy and Bowen were among the many visitors to the site, paying their respects.