His mates - a group of about 20 living on Sydney’s northern beaches - have all lost at least two, some three or more.

When one tragic death led to a suicide, there was a fear among police and youth agencies that it could lead to a contagion - where those exposed to suicide take their own life too.

The concerns began in 2018, when 18-year-old Oscar Valentin, known as OJ, died in a car accident on a farm near Mudgee.

Not only was his death a huge personal loss to his friends, but some were traumatised, unable to sleep for months on end after witnessing the accident itself.

Then, four months later, a charismatic member of the group, landscaper apprentice Angus Prior, 18, died by suicide.

He had recently had a tribute to his best mate Oscar tattooed on his arm.

He had been struggling, but had appeared to be coping better than some. So it was a complete shock.

At his funeral, his family described Angus’s actions as a “moment of madness” and one that he would have regretted.

They pleaded with the congregation - many of them still in their teens - to get help if they, too, were struggling.

Despite the pleas, other suicide attempts and self-harm within the group followed, as the friends crippled with grief, shock and confusion continued down a self-destructive path of heavy drinking and drugs.

Now more than three years later, the young men are emerging from the pain and loss - and Covid lockdowns - with positivity and hope for the future, as well as a powerful message to other young people in the same situation: Hang in there, time does help.

Over dinner in a pub in Mona Vale this week, the mates, who range in age from 20 to 24, agreed, “in that moment and in that time we thought we’d never get over it”.

Justene Gordon, head of The Burdekin Association, a youth organisation that stepped in to help the boys pull through, said 60 to 70 per cent of the original group of 20 had suicide ideation, where they had talked about taking their lives.

‘It’s been a real fight to save them,” she admitted.

Josh, a metal fabricator from Mona Vale, said he reacted to his friends’ deaths by drinking, which led to court appearances and one night in a mental health wing.

He would look at people being happy around him and not know how to react.

“I just wanted to explode,” he said. “I had sour feelings.

“I lost a job over it. I had a bad day and didn’t go to work. I just didn’t care.”

Many lost apprenticeships or suffered setbacks because of the grief.

Nick Llamas, 20, now studying business at university, was in Year 12 doing his half yearly exams when Oscar died.

He said it was shocking to realise that a life can be extinguished in just “30 seconds”.

Then Angus died during his HSC trials.

“I was incapable of doing any exams, I got average results,” he said. “That year was pretty bad.”

Their idea of coping was to meet at Mona Vale Skate Park, not to skate, but to drink and take drugs.

“We knew all the wrong things to do and that we shouldn’t be doing them, but we did them anyway because they were the easy things to do,” Sam Lock, 21, a landscaper from Mona Vale said.

“None of us knew how to feel.

“We hadn’t learned how to feel. We hadn’t had enough time to figure it out. Yeah, then it happened again. So, it was just like what are we going to do now?

“We’d already been through it once, but we’d never been through it twice. It was just when we thought we were coming out of it, it was like we were crushed again.”

After Oscar’s death, parents in the community were “freaking out”, as their children’s risk-taking behaviour escalated. After Angus died their fears worsened.

Pop-up counselling sessions were offered but there was little take up.

Justene could see that traditional methods of support were not working in this case.

So, she went down with counsellors to Mona Vale Skate Park, armed with pizzas and eventually got all their numbers and added them to a chat group and then a Facebook group.

“We needed to reach these kids, because they weren’t going to come to us,” she said. “We needed to show them we could be trusted and committed to helping them.”

Initially, her role was to help them get permission from the council for a mural to honour Oscar.

His mate Angus insisted it must feature a kookaburra, a bird Oscar loved.

Tragically, it would end up featuring two kookaburras, to represent each of them.

Justene began organising dinners every couple of weeks. Angus was attending those dinners and was talking about the future and going skiing, just 24 hours before he took his life.

They all believe it would not have happened if he was sober and that it was a decision he would definitely have regretted.

After the news, the friends all rushed to the skatepark to drown their sorrows with a vengeance. Justene turned up to give them a lecture. “I got a bit cranky with them,” she said. “This behaviour had to stop.”

Slowly over time it did and now if some go to the skate park it is to skate. Others can’t bear to go there, it’s a reminder of bad times.

Counselling has helped too.

Through the bi-monthly dinners Justene was able to connect them with people to talk to.

“Your parents don’t want to pry, they don’t want to ask the hard questions,” said Sam.

“They ask if you’re OK and if you say yes, they sort of shut up. They don’t know what to ask, none of them have been through it.

“I remember my dad saying it’s ‘shit, but it is what it is’, and I knew he meant we’d get through it and that was OK, but that’s not what you want to hear or what you need to hear and it doesn’t help.

“So having Justene direct us to the right places so we could go and ask those questions that we were scared to ask. It definitely helped a lot to feel safe.”

He said like others he felt like a lot of people - who seemed to appear on the scene after the deaths - weren’t genuine.

“In general I found a lot of people had a lot to say, but it was just a lot of nothing.

“It was a lot of, ‘Oh, I’m really sorry’. ‘I’m here if you need me’, but it’s like, ‘Are you? If, I call you at 4am on a f****** Wednesday night, because I haven’t slept and I’m standing on the edge of a cliff are you going to be there’. It felt like a lot of empty promises.

“I know deep down people want to be that person that cares for you and they want you to know, everyone wants to be that person that’s helping, but there’s few people like Justene that step in and be that person.”

In 2019 the charity won a grant for the group to go to the snow.

“It was something for them to look forward to,” Justene said. “And because of the circumstances around Oscar’s death, I wanted to show that they could all go away together and it would be OK, they would all come back.”

She also helped them buy tools for those doing trade jobs, after she realised many were borrowing from bosses, as well as jumping in and helping them access the Covid payments when restrictions changed and it meant they couldn’t work.

James Cairns, 24, who lives Newport, said having those tools was what got him over line in getting his carpentry apprenticeship.

Justene said although The Burdekin Association has access to counsellors it was not funded for this type of work but they did it anyway because “it was the right thing to do”.

She felt supporting the boys was not just about providing counselling, it was about “setting them up for life”.

“You have to look at the whole holistic kind of picture,” she said.

“It’s real. What is actually going to be useful to you guys? Food and tools.”

Some sought a bit of counselling in the first few months, but most have only reached out in the last 18 months. It’s an ongoing battle.

“I still go and speak to someone because that helps me,” said Sam. “I went a few times soon after, but in the last six months I’ve started again because I felt myself struggling emotionally.

“All this has shown me there is help if I need it and that’s it’s OK not to be OK. It’s OK to ask for help.”

Josh said promoting the idea that it was Ok to ask for help was what he wanted most.

Recently an older workmate did not seem himself. He knew the signs.

“I knew something was up,” he said.

“He was going through turmoil. It’s identifying when someone’s uneasy, putting out feelers to get a bit of feedback from someone else.

“He was my dad’s age and I just said, ‘Hey man, what’s going on are you alright?’ and we put the tools down and we had a convo, simple as that.”

The friends still meet for dinner about once a month - Justene pays for the food, not the alcohol, if they choose to have a schooner.

When asked what their hopes were for the future, their reaction was immediate - to qualify or pass their uni exams.

Some have dreams of travelling.

Sam said he’s looking forward to “just living”.

He said his life has been on pause for three and a half years with the grief and Covid lockdowns.

“It feels like life is actually just starting again now.”

The boys want to support The Burdekin Association. To donate go to: burdekin.org.au