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A man has died after being swept out to sea but a rescuer saved three people from the same rip. Jaimie Scott braved three-metre swells in a kayak to ferry a trio stuck on a rock back to the Pareparea Bay shore, east of Whangarei.
Four people, one a teenage girl, had been swept out by a strong current but halfway through the rescue attempt, Scott was told someone from the group was missing. "I found him further out and brought him back in. It was the first time I had seen a body," Scott told the Herald on Sunday yesterday.
Scott, an experienced surfer who has lived beside Pareparea Bay, Whananaki, for 15 years, said the channel there looked safe to swim but masked a deadly current. "They were very inexperienced in the water. To me it was an obvious trap."
It appeared the group had been looking for shellfish. The dead man, believed to be a 39-year-old Northlander, had not been named late last night.
