Are you sure? It's starting to sound like a Monty Python sketch

The ABC one doesn't say what happened after he reached hospital other than he was critical so maybe he died after they posted the report and just not updated? Bloody shame even if he did die doing what he loved, which has to be a good way to go (in the grand scheme of things)

Did that sound tactless? You know what I mean though.

Well, the competition he was taking part in is the Aussies 2010, which is the national competition of surf life saving and is organised by my employer - Surf Life Saving Australia.

In answer to your comments.
1) Competitions take place away from the red and yellow flagged areas of beaches because swimmers tend to object to surf skis, rescue boards, IRBs and jet skis in their safe patrolled area.
2) The race the lad died in was the second last heat to be held at Kurruwa before they moved everything south to a safer beach - all 8000 competitors were due to up sticks and move that afternoon.
3) There was plenty of water safety in the ocean at the time of the incident, but the guy in question got rolled off his ski in a plunging wave and the general view is that he got hit by the ski when he went 'over the falls', knocking him out. He would then obviously have sunk to the bottom and it's very difficult to locate people when they're on the bottom, particularly in surf that angry. Hundreds of competitors entered the water to look for him and he was eventually pulled from the water nearly a kilometre from where the race took place.
4) He was pulled from the water and received CPR - they got a pulse back, but he died in the ambulance on the way to hospital.

He was an incredibly experienced surf lifesaver who had been in nippers since the age of 8 and who was the victim of a sporting accident. He died in the prime of life at the age of 19 and his parents got to see the whole sorry saga unfold. I'm not entirely sure what's so ****ing hilarious about that, perhaps someone can tell me.

Very sad outcome.
Appreciate you telling the whole story Hutch, thanks.

Just had one of the organizers in my shop (we are close to Kurrawa) on his way down to the competition which has been cancelled this morning. He told me that everyone is devestated at the loss of a competitor, how hundreds of people were searching an ever increasing area, the deceased's mother becoming more hysterical as the time went on with no sign of her son, and the body being eventually found 1km from the competition site.

Dancing on the grave of a 19 year old who has died in such tragic circumstances is pretty tasteless but unfortunately its par for the course these days on BE whose newer members seem to be religous bigots, self promoters or hypocrites.

RIP.

Totally agree Hutch... I was just reading this and thinking how bloody sick some people are! They guy was 19 FFS!! Just imagine you being that parent stood on the beach while they searched frantically for your son!

Shame on you guys

Several comments including mine, were relating to the media's disregard of confirming their 'facts' before reporting them. Shocking.

There is another point which hasnt been added, a 15 year old lad was killed at the same spot in the same carnival in the same sort of conditions in 1996. Maybe why so many of the public think it shouldnt have gone ahead.

Devastating for the parents. Especially as the lad is now reported as not having wanted to compete Very sad.

I have a dark sense of humour, what can I say?

Someone drowning at a surf lifesaving competition is inherently amusing to me. Yes, someone died but they did go out there ... I avoided the potential problems by going to work in an office.

Just goes to show how particularly suited human beings are to living on land.

Yup, totally avoidable.

It was a rolling news story that reflects the 24-7 media coverage we now get. When the first aeroplane hit the trade centre the news outlets were calling it an accident. Stories evolve over time - I was reading those reports as they happened and was getting first hand information myself from colleagues at the event and the reports reflected the information available at that time.

Kurruwa's a fairly typical sort of Australian beach. Long, open, multiple parallel bars. When the swell gets up it can break on each of those bars making for testing conditions. But someone like Saxon would have been out in those conditions on plenty of other occasions. That accident could have happened on any beach in Australia and in far more benign conditions. Not quite sure what the other lad's death 14 years previous has to do with it, I mean Ayrton Senna died at the San Marino Grand Prix, but the last time I checked the circuit was still in business.

Can't say I'd particularly want to go out in those conditions either, but he was an adult who made a choice, just like other sports men and women do every day. Don't know what's so different about his death to a racing driver hitting a barrier and dying, a rugby player getting his neck broken or a skier dying in an avalanche.

It was an Ironman competition. You know - triathlon sort of an event, three disciplines - swimming, ocean ski and run. Would a child dying at a road safety event be as inherently amusing to you too?

Mind you don't get a paper cut.

Despite all the hilarious cliff deaths and guffaw-inducing fatal falls?

Interesting that you only just poo pooed the entire notion of sport by saying that it is "pointless" in another thread. Now suddenly it has merit, does it?

No - it doesn't have any merit whatsoever, thanks for asking. I just don't think it's funny when someone dies in an accident - but then I'm strange like that. I'll bet if it was someone close to Vim he'd be ****ing pissing himself hysterical for weeks.

1) Which child? Does Bindi Irwin figure? And, more generally ... yes, actually, it probably would ... hey, no accounting for perverted dark humour eh? It would be offset by the fact that it was a child and was therefore less aware of the dangers than a 'Iron Man'.

2) Thanks, I'll be sure to wear gloves refilling the printer

3) Yes, despite all that hilarity

So you've never made a 'black humour' joke immediately after someone famous died?

Plenty of times. I'm trying not to be such a **** these days though.