Two dead in drowning incidents on Christmas Day

The wife of a young father who was one of two people who drowned in NSW on Christmas Day has written a heartbreaking Instagram post detailing her loss.

Two people including a toddler are dead and two more are missing in four separate incidents following a horror Christmas Day on the state’s waterways.

A three-year-old boy drowned in Lake Macquarie, several hours north of Sydney, after wandering away from his parents’ waterfront property on Christmas night.

Police understand the boy was playing in front of his home when he walked off from his family and fell into the water.

His body was pulled from the water off Fishing Point Rd, Rathmines, by neighbours about 6.30pm on Saturday.

Aaron Thomson, who was killed in a jet-skiing accident on Christmas Eve. Picture: Instagram

Bystanders performed CPR on the unconscious boy until paramedics arrived and took over, but he could not be revived.

Earlier in the day police divers searching for a jetskier missing since Christmas Eve in Sydney’s south recovered a body near Shiprock Reserve, Dolans Bay.

Aaron Thomson, 35, was jet skiing with two friends on Friday evening before an incident in which the men ”catapulted” into the water.

“The driver and one passenger – who were wearing life jackets – were rescued,” police said in a statement on Christmas Day.

Mr Thomson’s body was recovered about 11am on Saturday. His wife Renee Monroe said the pain she felt was “unimaginable”.

Aaron Thomson was a new father. Picture: Instagram

“My love, I don’t know where to start, I’m at a complete loss for words,” she wrote on Instagram.

“What I thought was going to be our first Christmas celebrating as a family, will now never be.

“I’m trying to hold it together for our baby girl, but when I look at Havana I can’t stop thinking of you. How she lost her daddy, her protector and love of her life.”

Emergency services are also continuing searches for a teenager who went missing while swimming with mates in the Murray River in Albury and a man who disappeared in a dam in Bathurst, both on Christmas Day afternoon.

Divers from Victoria have been brought in to assist with the search for the boy missing in the Murray.

He was among a group of teenage boys who got into difficulties while swimming in the river and had to be helped from the water.

In Bathurst, a search was unable to find the man who was with a group on a boat on the Ben Chifley Dam when he told his friends he was going to swim to shore, a distance of about 300m. A storm struck the area a short time later and the man’s friends saw him disappear under the water.

Australia has recorded 26 drownings since the first day of summer this year.

Royal Life Saving Australia chief executive Justin Carr said “quite often people assume that the flat, calmer appearance of lakes and rivers mean that they’re safe but unfortunately they can have strong currents, steed drop-offs and even icy temperatures”.

“So generally people need to understand their swimming ability, wear their lifejacket when they’re boating and fishing, and watch their children constantly around the water,” he said.