Wedding interrupted as child rescued from sea

A man at a wedding celebration leaped from a second-floor window to rescue a young boy who had fallen into the sea at Napier on Saturday.

Guests at the reception in the Quayside Restaurant in the Bluewater Hotel complex were avoiding publicity yesterday, but hotel proprietor Rodney Green said it could have been a tragedy had the boy not been seen as he fell from a nearby pier.

He said the boy's rescuer leaped about 4m to the ground and sprinted up the pier to the water's edge.

From ground level, no one could see the boy splashing in the water on the seaward side of the pier.

"I thought it was the groom trying to escape from the bride, and it looked like he was going to jump into the water to get away," Mr Green said.

The apparently humorous wedding "escape" was only explained when the man dropped to his knees, stretched out an arm and hauled the boy to safety.

Hot on the man's heels were at least two others also thought to have leaped from the restaurant.

Other guests clambered down the stairs to assist in the rescue, said Mr Green, who had just returned from a fishing charter and was in the hotel's Sportsman's Bar when the drama unfolded about 6.30pm.

He said that as he docked his boat about an hour earlier he had seen the boy, who he thought about 6 years old, playing nearby.

Mr Green said that if the wedding reception guest had not seen the boy fall off the pier, he might not have been saved.

"Being on the seaward side of the pier, no one would have seen him."

- NZPA