Police release name of Wellington drowning victim
Monday, 13 January 2020
Valeliano Mita was fishing off a wharf in Wellington with his family, when his son fell into the rough water below.
The 40-year-old Wellington man's decision to jump in after his son may have saved the boy's life but it has cost his own.
On Monday, police confirmed that Mita had died in Wellington Hospital on Saturday evening after being pulled from the water near Seatoun wharf by passers-by earlier that evening.
He leaves behind a wife and three children, including the son he helped saved, who watched from shore as strangers tried to pull Mita from the water.
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Police confirmed that the boy remained in Wellington Hospital on Monday but was expected to make a full recovery.
A local woman, who was walking along Seatoun beach with her two daughters at the time, said she and three fisherman attempted to save Mita from the water.
'The boy was being pulled out of the water when we arrived. The father was still out there, the wife was quite upset. We were trying to get him onto the beach,' she said.
'It was horrible.'
She said the father was eventually brought in with the waves and she and the three fisherman pulled him ashore. Another man, who lived nearby, administered CPR.
'We were hoping he would pull through.'
The woman said the boy pulled from the water had been shivering and appeared to be shock. His sibling were 'horrified'.
Wellington Free Ambulance performed CPR on Mita on the beach. He was taken to hospital in a critical condition and died a short time later.
The death comes a day after a Masterton father-of-two and his 11-year-old son drowned while diving off the Wairarapa coast.
The three deaths take the total drowning death toll to five for 2020. For the past five years, there have an average of 80 preventable drownings a year.