KEY POINTS:
"Thank God you're here. I'm so pleased to see you."
Those were the only words Alan Hampton had the strength to tell his rescuer after clinging to his dead son's body while waiting for hours to be saved from the cold Tasman sea.
Geoffrey Hampton, 19, died in his father's arms while floating off the Wanganui coast with friend Duncan Powell, just 30 minutes after a search and rescue mission was called off.
After their fishing boat sank, the trio drifted in open water for 12 hours until a fisherman found them shortly after daybreak last Sunday.
Relatives raised the alarm at 8pm the night before and police rescuers have been criticised for not calling nearby Ohakea Air Force base for help.
Police, Defence Force, National Rescue Co-ordination and Coastguard representatives will discuss their roles in the rescue at a meeting in Wanganui tomorrow night organised by acting Police Minister Phil Goff.
A police maritime expert will also review the decision-making process, with the results expected to be released this week.
The fisherman, hailed a hero for hauling Hampton and Powell from the water, said a triple tragedy was only narrowly avoided.
Lyndon Bowman saw a spotter plane circling above and heard the Coastguard radio mention three men in the water just 3km from where he was fishing for snapper.
"All I could see was one guy lying flat on his back, father sitting up in the water, his son wrapped in his arms. I didn't know he was dead until I pulled him out of the water," said Bowman. "The father said: 'Thank God you're here, I'm so pleased to see you."'
Suffering from hypothermia, 32-year-old Powell was hauled on board first but Alan Hampton, 44, insisted that Bowman pulled his dead son out of the water next.
"Another half an hour and the guy lying in the water would have been dead.
"Skin was coming off his hands, he had real bad hypothermia, he was in a bad way," said Bowman.
"Everyone is saying I'm a hero but anybody would have done the some bloody thing."
Geoffrey was wrapped in a blanket and laid in his father's lap before Bowman hauled anchor to head back to Wanganui to meet the Coastguard.
Wanganui MP Chester Borrows has questioned why the Air Force was not called to offer any advice on the rescue mission, and crewmen at Ohakea have also voiced concerns.
They believed the three men would have been found hours earlier if the Iroquois helicopter, equipped with night-vision goggles and a winch, had been asked to help.
Squadron leader Glenn Davis, from Defence Force headquarters in Wellington, dismissed that as "pure speculation".
"You can't go out and say a life would've been saved because we don't know that."
Goff said the loss of a young man's life was a tragedy and expressed his sincerest sympathy to the Hampton family.
He said it was "unhelpful" to speculate on whether the right decisions were made or if the Air Force would have made a difference.
Friends and workmates told the Herald on Sunday Geoffrey was "laidback" and "always cracking jokes", but his parents declined to comment until after their eldest son's funeral on Tuesday.
Dairy farmer Michael Dewar, 18, went to Mangamaire Country School with Geoffrey.
"He was always straightforward and liked having fun," Dewar said.
"He was quite a funny sort of person, a really fun person, always cracking jokes."
The eldest of three sons, Geoffrey next went to Feilding High School, where he attended horticulture and technology classes with Lance McDonald.
"I went to his place and played on his motorbikes on their farm. He was laidback, he had a good sense of humour."
A teacher at Mangamaire school remembers the Hamptons as a hard-working dairy farming family.
"The boys were definitely farmers' kids, real country bumpkins. Geoff was an active wee guy, a good role model for the little kids, a bit of a character."
Fifty-two-year old Bowman visited Alan Hampton in Wanganui Hospital the day he was pulled from the water.
"He tried to hug me but he had all these drips in his arms so he shook my hand," said Bowman.
"His wife embraced me for ages and said: 'You don't know what you've done. You've saved two lives'.
"I'm just sad I didn't save three."
