Children spared sight of dying mum

Leslie and Gavin Visser enjoyed holidays together, and Lake Ruataniwha was a favourite spot.

Gavin Visser says he was thinking of his children as he desperately tried to save his fatally injured wife after their jetskis collided.

Leslie Visser died at Lake Ruataniwha in the Mackenzie Country on Sunday afternoon after turning her jetski in front of her husband's and being run over by his machine.

The couple's two children - Ryley, 6, and Millan, 9 - were with friends on a beach on the other side of the lake at the time.

"I screamed for help, but there was no one around," Mr Visser told the Christchurch Star.

"Leslie was floating in the water. I tried to revive her and had to take her all the way back on the jetski.

"I couldn't leave her where we were, but I didn't want to take her to the beach where the kids were. I didn't want them to see her like that. That's why I went to the rowing club."

Attempts to resuscitate Mrs Visser failed.

Before the accident, Mrs Visser had been keen to get the jetskis out but did not want to ride one herself. Then she changed her mind.

"I said, 'Do you want to come?' and she said, 'I want to go'. It all happened from there," said Mr Visser.

He had been devastated by suggestions that the accident may have been as a result of their jetskis coming too close to the lake's rowing lanes.

"We never went near the rowing lanes. In fact, we only went out because no one else was there."

Lake Ruataniwha is a favourite family holiday spot; it was the Vissers' third holiday there. They'd had the jetskis for a couple of years.

"At first we thought it would be this most awful place, but when we got there it was beautiful," said Mr Visser.

The couple had been together since October 1987. They met on a mystery bus trip and spent their first few years together in Christchurch.

Mrs Visser worked in an administrative and managerial role with a credit company but had also trained as a sharebroker.

"She was really proud of that. When she was at school she went on a trip to a trading floor and decided she really wanted to do that. She ended up achieving that goal."

Her family remember her as the "ultimate mum". The couple went to the Melbourne Cup last year and had a fantastic time, said Mr Visser. They recently went on a family holiday to the Sunshine Coast.

Mr Visser said Ryley and Millan were being supported by family members and Victim Support volunteers in their Fernside home, near Rangiora.

- CHRISTCHURCH STAR