‘Fit and healthy’ 37yo Canberra dad-of-three tragically dies from Influenza B

“My three-year-old will never remember his father and all my boys have lost the male role model in their life,” heartbroken wife Carla says. 

Mate Babic, a fit and healthy Canberra dad has died from flu complications. 

The dad-of-three was in the “best shape of his life” when he began feeling ill. 

He started with a slight cough on Friday, 7th July, but as the symptoms worsened, he called TeleHealth the following Tuesday. 

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Mate died hours before his doctor's appointment. Source: GoFundMe

37yo was “put off” going to hospital from bad past experiences

They recommended he visit the doctor in-person, which his wife Carla organised the next day. 

Mate later visited his parent’s house when he came down with a fever. 

To help himself cool down, he ran a bath and sat on the edge of a nearby bed while the tub filled with water. 

The tub continued to fill while he resting, flooding the house. 

“His parents got woken up to their place flooded and their son dead,” his wife, Carla, told Daily Mail.

According to a family friend, Peta Harrison, his “influenza had progressed to a bacterial pneumonia.” 

Mate and Carla both had Influenza A in December 2022. Carla’s sickness worsened to pneumonia, and she was admitted to hospital. 

However, after a bad experience waiting for a medical professional, he was put off visiting hospitals again. 

“He had a long waiting period, sat in the emergency department for hours and hours on end,” Carla explained. “...and the whole experience turned him off going to the hospital to the stage where he told me, 'I am never going to hospital unless I am dying'.”

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Mate leaves behind three sons - Luka, 3, Sebastian, 6, and Marko, 7. Source: Facebook

“[The flu] can go from something pretty bad to totally catastrophic”

Carla remembers the dad-of-three as a “loveable larrikin, full of jokes, the life of the party who would just make everyone smile.”

He leaves behind his wife and three sons - Luka, three, Sebastian, six and Marko, seven. 

Carla and Mate weren’t vaccinated against the flu, but Carla now urges others to take the sickness seriously. 

“Get vaccinated and go to the hospital if you are feeling unwell, get someone to check it out because this is a perfect example of you just don’t know what is going to happen - it is so unpredictable,” she said. 

“It can go from something pretty bad to totally catastrophic. 

“I know it is painful to sit and wait in a waiting room, but it is better to be alive, and because he wouldn’t go, my three-year-old will never remember his father and all my boys have lost the male role model in their life.”

Originally published as ‘Fit and healthy’ 37yo Canberra dad-of-three tragically dies from Influenza B