After their 9-year-old daughter drowned in the sea, the family created a drift device to track missing people

The father of a Christchurch schoolgirl who drowned on the West Coast last year has designed a drift device to help prevent further deaths in the water.

Emily Branje, 9, was swept out to sea by a rogue wave while sitting watching her grandfather bite on the banks of the Hokitika River on September 26 last year.

His body was found two days later by members of the public 30 kilometers away on Cobden Beach, near the mouth of the Gray River.

Her family has launched the homeless Emily B project, which mimics the movements of a person in the water, with or without a life jacket.

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It launches to the location as soon as possible after the person was last seen and sends their location to search engines in real time via satellite GPS for up to four days.

Using the $ 18,000 raised from a Givealittle page created after Emily’s death, the family partnered with West Coast’s Kotoku Surf Life Saving to create teams that will help find and recover missing people from the sea.

Emily’s father Patrick, who is a mechanical engineer, designed and manufactured several prototypes that are being tested by surf lifeguards on the West Coast.

The family hopes it will help prevent further drownings and save families from an agonizing wait to retrieve the bodies of their loved ones from the sea.

Branje’s mother, Janine, said that after the worst year of their lives, the family wanted to use Emily’s memory to help other people.

Branje said she would be “eternally grateful” to retrieve the body of her only son.

“I remember at that moment I was really relieved that they found her. The worst part of it all, aside from hearing that she wasn’t there, was the waiting and I’m pretty sure I can speak for everyone in the family, which was horrible while we waited. We were very lucky and lucky to get it back.

“The purpose is that in the future, and unfortunately it will happen, the time that people spend without their loved ones is minimized because for us that was absolutely terrible.”

Branje said the family wanted to use the Givealittle fund to give back to the West Coast community that went out of their way to search for Emily and provide for the family.

Kotoku Vice President Paul Lambert said it would help search engines significantly narrow down a potentially vast search area.

“No one else in New Zealand has done live GPS tracking. The thing about the west coast is the heavy rains and the big rivers. This will help us understand the flow around large rivers, currents, swells, waves, speed, direction. It’s huge, ”she said.

Researchers from the University of Auckland and the University of Canterbury would use the data collected from the tests to better understand sea conditions off the rugged coastlines of the west coast.

Janine Branje wanted to promote safety on the water before gag season on the West Coast began Tuesday.

“My biggest message is that it doesn’t take much to make sure your children are supervised. Make sure they have life jackets on even if they are playing [on the shore]. In the blink of an eye, everything can change so, so fast and it will change your life forever, and it has. It has changed our lives a lot. “

Emily was a “determined little soul” with a passion for upland dancing and fencing.

“She was very frank. She had a zest for life … She loved exploring, she loved adventure. And she certainly would have loved this project. She was big on tech and development so the fact that we got involved in this is just for her … She was thriving in life. It’s such a waste, such a wasted life. “