“He turned around from inside the hole, and he was just smiling at me as he always was and I yelled out that I loved him,” Cooke told the Herald.

“So, I walked back down to the bottom of the sand dune and just as I got back down to the bottom of it, my 10-year-old sister yells out, ‘Kane’s buried’.

“I ran over, I gave her the baby and it’s only his feet sticking out.

Cooke and Watson had gone to Muriwai Beach with their 1-and-a-half-year-old daughter and her 10, 9 and 6-year-old sons from a previous relationship, as well as her 10-year-old sister.

Both Cooke and her 9-year-old son started trying to dig Watson out from under 2m of sand.

The 10-year-old ran to get help, while frantic calls to 111 were made.

Cooke said other beach goers rushed to help; including a teen who had been riding a dirt bike nearby.

Cooke, two men in their mid-30s and the teen eventually managed to pull Watson free.

“Every time you touch any bit of sand at that point, it’s just caving in on itself more,” she said.

Watson was unresponsive when he was rescued, with the two men starting CPR immediately.

Local volunteer firefighters took over the CPR mission when they arrived soon after.

“They were all so amazing,” Cooke said.

“They just worked so freaking endlessly, trying to bring him back to life.”

Their efforts were successful, managing to restart Watson’s heart near where he had been buried.

He was later airlifted to hospital.

But Cooke – who turned 29 in the week leading up to the tragedy – realised the prognosis was “grim” and Watson died on August 25.

Search for “most amazing” teen

There is no shortage of people that Cooke wants to thank for helping to rescue her partner, trying to bring him back to life, then caring for him in hospital.

She said at one stage about 30 people were taking turns to provide CPR for “two minutes, then swapping over” to someone else.

“I just could not believe how amazing these people were together,” she said.

“I was just so amazed these people dropped everything they were doing to come running to help a complete stranger.”

Among those she has the most admiration for was a teenage boy who she said “threw down” the dirt bike he was riding to rush to help.

“He ruined his motocross boots, that cost about $300, to run through the sand to help,” Cooke said.

“This kid just threw everything down to come running. For a child to do that to me is just amazing. That just shows the kind of person he’s going to be.

“I really wanted to get him a gift. And go see him personally.”

A ‘perfect smile’

Watson and Cooke knew each other as high school students in their early teens.

But it wasn’t until about three years ago – in their mid-20s – that they began a relationship.

That followed a picnic at the beach where Cooke said she was taken by “this perfect smile and this way to draw people in”.

She was already the mother of three children, and in 2023 they had their own daughter.

Watson doted on her, just as he did on Cooke’s other children, and the two girls they later fostered.

In the months before his death, Watson was incredibly excited about the impending birth of their second child together, Cooke said.

That baby is due on January 1, 2026 – the day that would have been Watson’s 29th birthday. A scan after the tragedy revealed the baby is a boy.

He will be named Zire Kane; a name they had chosen together – the middle name a tribute to the father he will never meet.

Watson worked in property maintenance, including fencing and lawn mowing, and keenly supported all the children’s sporting interests, Cooke said.

That included coaching softball and basketball teams, and being a parent helper at the children’s motocross events.

“He was so involved,” Cooke said.

“He was the most amazing person. He was just the most gentlest person ever.

“He was the one that you’d always see running to help every kid that had fallen over or crashed. He was the first one there picking them up, starting their bikes.”

Watson couldn’t ride a motorbike when he first started dating Cooke.

But soon after he bought a dirt bike. “It was like this complete passion of his,” Cooke said.

“He had a goal to own every bike ever made. That was his thing. I thought, ‘That’s a lot of bikes’.”

Watson went through 65 different road motorbikes in a year and a half, regularly changing his ride of choice by making bike swaps with other owners.

‘Kane would be very proud’

Cooke said her world was turned upside down by the tragedy at Muriwai Beach.

A time when she and Watson should have been planning for the arrival of their second child has been instead a time of deep pain.

Reminders of Watson and the life they shared, and what Cooke has lost, are ever-present.

“It’s a hard journey,” she said. “It’s not ever something I pictured – being in this situation.”

But she said she has a “lovely group of children” looking after her.

The blended family includes two 10-year-old girls that the couple had only recently legally fostered.

“Kane would be very proud of these boys and how much they want to look after me,” she said.

“And the girls are an absolutely great help. They’re a great help with the baby.

“My biggest thing is just trying to keep his memory alive and telling my boys [to] turn out just like him. Once he came into their lives… they just changed… so much.

“They were always loving people, but just the little things like greeting people and saying ‘hi’ to everyone.”

Cooke added her 9-year-old son had been so moved by the valiant efforts of volunteer firefighters to save Watson, that he had set his sights on joining Fire and Emergency NZ when he is an adult.

“He was really amazed at the crew that came down,” Cooke said.

“It is something that he wants to do, to help people.”

‘I want his life to be remembered well’

Watson loved elderly people, Cooke said.

He would regularly stop when out walking to talk to them. He told Cooke they always had “the best stories and the best knowledge”.

He hated the thought of old people being alone. It was one of the parts of his personality that warmed Cooke’s heart, she said.

“He just stops everything to go and help. That was the kind of person he was,” Cooke said.

“Whether it was holding doors [open] or carrying people’s shopping, he was just always like that.”

On the day he was critically injured, Watson had been helping a man in his 80s build a yard to contain cattle.

After Cooke asked how much the job was worth, Watson decided to take her to the location and meet his customer.

“This old man struggled to even just walk over to where the cattle yard was,” Cooke recalled.

“Kane goes, ‘Now, how much would you charge that guy?’.

“There’s no way he could charge the old man anything for his time. He goes, ‘One day we’re all going to be old and the worst thing I can ever imagine is not being able to do the things that you need to be able to do’.”

In his memory, Cooke and her children plan to visit rest homes at Christmas to try and bring some festive spirit to those who might not have families visiting them.

“I just want his life to be remembered well… we don’t want people to be alone,” she said.

“I can’t even picture Christmas without him. But we want to do something to be more like him, share his values.

“That’s something I really want to drill into my kids. I’ve got all these children and they’re the only things that get me through every single day.

“I feel like I should be sharing the love of their special little smiles.”

Neil Reid is a Napier-based senior reporter who covers general news, features and sport. He joined the Herald in 2014 and has 33 years of newsroom experience.

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