Brad Coleman drowns saving kids Raiden and Aleyna at Hyams Beach

Even before unpacking, the Colemans posed for a family photo when they arrived at their favourite south coast holiday spot for the first time in three years.

Even before they unpacked, the Colemans posed for a family photo when they arrived at their favourite south coast holiday spot for the first time in three years.

Their next task was a swim, but within hours of what was to be their final photo together, Brad rushed into the water at Hyams Beach answering the screams from his distressed teenage son and daughter, who had been swept out by an unusually strong rip.

Brad Coleman with his wife Hulya and children Aleyna and Raiden, in a favourite picture shared on the family’s GoFundMe page.

After bringing them to safety with the help of onlookers on bodyboards, Brad, 40, encountered difficulties himself and is suspected to have suffered a heart attack before he died in the water.

His shocked wife Hulya watched as her heroic husband drifted toward her with his face down in the water after wading through thick seaweed to pull him out of the waves.

She and their two children Raiden, 13, and Aleyna, 11, were flown to Prince of Wales Hospital covered in red seaweed that had encroached on the south coast beach after a week of wild weather.

“It just kept pulling, the waves kept pulling and pulling at you,” Mrs Coleman said. “There was nothing I could do to save him. I’ve lost my best friend. I never thought I’d ever be a widow.

“This is a nightmare that I keep thinking I’ll wake up from …. then I realise it’s true.

“I’ve lost my best friend, the love of my life and the most wonderful father to our children.

Brad Coleman snapped a picture of him with the family hours before he died in the surf at Hyams Beach.

“We are in this timeline and it’s not just a nightmare. Brad would have fought long, hard, and then long and hard again before taking a lungful of water, of that I have no doubt.

“My beloved became our eternal hero, and my heart literally broke on that beach, but it could have been so much worse.”

Family man Brad Coleman lived for his children Aleyna and Raiden.

Mrs Coleman had been watching from the balcony of their rented accommodation on March 4 when she heard her children scream and saw her husband race into the sea.

“Hulya is beside herself with grief. She hasn’t even come to terms of what’s happened,” their close family friend and representative Jennifer Couttas said.

“She is suffering from a real thing called broken heart syndrome, she went into hospital again last week but is out now.

“I know Brad sounds like an average human but to us he was a very special, kind, and rare human who lived for his family.”

Friends say Brad Coleman, who lived in the Sydney suburb of Hurlstone Park, adored his family.

To add to the grief, Mrs Coelman’s father died last week in a palliative care facility just hours after she left hospital.

“She didn’t even get a chance to say goodbye,” Mrs Couttas said.

Mr Coleman’s brother has organised a GoFundMe page to raise money for the children and their mother to undergo therapy so that they are not defined by his death.

“Hulya’s priority is the children and she doesn’t want them all to be defined by this tragedy but rather to come to terms with and live with what’s happened and she believes that therapy will come some way to helping them do that,” Mrs Couttas said.

To suppport the family, visit their GoFundMe page.