A driver who became the first victim of ex-Cyclone Alfred after he was swept away by floodwaters was struck by tragedy three years earlier after losing his wife.
Tom ‘Cookie’ Cook, 61, was crossing Wild Cattle Creek Bridge in his ute at Megan, in northern NSW, when it was swept away on Friday afternoon.
The former council labourer managed to escape the vehicle and climb onto a tree.
He clung to a branch as emergency personnel tried to save him, but disappeared under the water before his body was found nearby at 4.30pm on Saturday.
One of his friends, who had gone to school with him in nearby Dorrigo, told Daily Mail Australia Mr Cook was a ‘quiet and decent man’.
They said he had been living alone with his dog after his wife died years earlier. The couple did not have any children.
His old school friend said Mr Cook ‘has had his trials’ when growing up in the area, and had been injured in motorbike accidents.
‘He was a decent man who had a sense of humour. We’ll miss him,’ they said.
A friend of Mr Cook’s said the Wild Cattle Creek Bridge (above) was a ‘very narrow bridge’ that had no railings
The ‘brave and strong’ local lived in the same house he had grown up in and was ‘probably just trying to get back home’ when he was caught in the storm.
‘That is a very narrow bridge, so much so that a few years ago they supposedly made it flood proof,’ his friend said.
‘I just think he wanted to get home.’
Mr Cook’s former neighbour Emma Hohnen said one of her colleagues had tried to save the 61-year-old before he went underwater.
‘He was very brave and strong and did kind things like he mowed my front median strip, or brought around food,’ she said.
‘He’d recently bought himself a Harley (Davidson motorcycle) it was his pride and joy.’
Ms Hohnen described Mr Cook as ‘friendly’ and said he ‘always popped out for a chat’ and that he enjoyed ‘collecting bits of wood’ for his woodwork projects.
She burst into tears when she heard Mr Cook had died and revealed she had seen him for the final time last Sunday.
Ms Hohnen said the low lying Wild Cattle Creek Bridge was made more dangerous by the fact it ‘had not railings on it’.
