The remarkable life and tragic death of Sonny Fai

Fai’s next brush with death had no happy ending.

When onlookers raised the alarm close to 20 minutes after Fai had gone missing, Bethells Beach lifeguard Bryn Grant-Mackie knew in the pit of his stomach it would be a recovery mission, not a rescue.

“In those conditions, 15 minutes is probably about as long as you’d last, half an hour you’re pretty much looking for a body,” he says.

Grant-Mackie, a keen league fan, had no idea who he was looking for. He would learn the next day it was one of NRL’s hottest prospects, but fate was already making itself known - this was his first patrol as a qualified lifeguard.

“I had just locked up the club and was having a barbecue and a few beers on the beach. I was thinking, ‘Well that’s the first one under my belt.’ Then I heard someone yelling out that some kids were drowning.”

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The surf club is set back five minutes walk from the beach, behind the river that snakes its way to the sea. It was one of the many factors that slowed the response to the emergency.

The lack of cellphone coverage, the deserted nature of the beach at that time of night, the delay in being able to launch the Inflatable Rescue Boat (IRB) that was locked away in the shed with its engine cooling, all conspired to make the wait for help excruciating for the distraught family.

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“We were so angry, to be honest, with the lifeguards. They brought out the boat and they were trying to get it started and it didn’t work … we could see it was getting dark,” says Colleen. “We were screaming at them. We knew they were trying their best, we were just angry.”

Grant-Mackie estimates another 20 minutes had passed by the time he and Dean Maddaford, a local lifeguard, were bucking their way through the waves in the IRB. They started a grid search, working their way north with the current in ever-expanding circles, while being buffeted by increasingly angry seas.

“We believe we saw him, but if you can imagine trying to get a sock out of a washing machine, especially if you’re in the washing machine as well - it just tumbles around,” says Grant-Mackie. “Whether it was him or not, or whether it was a dolphin or lump of seaweed, we’re not sure.”

A second IRB was launched and a helicopter arrived to assist, but there were no further sightings - imagined or otherwise - of Fai.

The conditions became too dark and dangerous to continue. The search was called off at 10pm.

A different kind of darkness was taking grip inside the surf club. Lesi, barely in his teens, and Colleen, only a few years older, were struggling to manage their emotions - grief, guilt, anger, shock.

But mostly fear.

They had lost their big brother and, in their young minds, it was their fault: they had lost Sonny.

“[The lifeguards] were telling us, ‘Call your parents, you should call someone.’ But we didn’t want to call anyone,” Colleen says, looking to Lesi. “We were so scared. We didn’t want my mum and especially my dad to know what had happened.”

That devastating phone call was eventually made to their mother, Tausili, who was brought to Bethells.

“The first thing she called out was Gillesbie, because Gillesbie is her baby. He came from the back and he said, ‘Yeah, I’m here.’ She stood there and said, ‘So where’s Sonny?’ No one said anything to her. She asked again and no one said anything.

“Then she fainted.”

Going home did not bring any comfort.

“The first thing Dad said to us was, ‘Where’s my son’?” Colleen recalls.

The haunted look on Lesi’s face still sticks with Don Mann, who had arrived at 12 Courtenay Cres at the same time the Fais were returning from the beach.

As he got out of his car somebody pointed to the van that had just arrived and told him to speak to them.

“I walked up to the front passenger seat and the person sitting there was Gillesbie, the younger brother that Sonny saved, but I didn’t know that at the time. I said in quite a stern voice: ‘Where’s Sonny? What’s happened to Sonny?’ I’ll never forget the absolute look of shock on Gillesbie’s face when I approached him. Shock and fear.”

If Matulino’s calls had given Mann minor cause for concern, now he was in no doubt something serious has happened.

Mann is still deeply affected by the hours that followed. In the retelling he will stop and leave the room to compose himself. It affects him to this degree because, one, like everyone, he loved Sonny’s personality and, two, because in the immediate aftermath he couldn’t let his guard down.

He is the ex-cop and the Warriors football manager. He is also Pasifika and the logical conduit between club and family. Mann has to have his game face on. Others can cry, others can remove themselves when it gets too tough - he can’t.

Entering the home, Mann is struck by an image that will stay with him forever: cross-legged on the floor sat the elders in a circle, being led in prayer by Sonny’s father Falelua, above them on the wall were two big pictures - Jesus Christ and Sonny Fai.

“Sonny was very much a hero and worshipped in the family,” Mann says. “Sonny’s dad spoke about how, ‘We’ll go back and we’ll find Sonny,’ and how he is still alive and God is watching over him.”

Mann finds an opportunity to leave the room and talk to Lalelei and her husband. For the first time he gets a sense of what has happened, but Lalelei is confident Sonny has got to safety at the back of the large rock that protected the northern end of the beach. They just need to get out there in the morning and collect him.

Mann remains calm and positive on the exterior but inside he is in turmoil.

“I knew he was dead and he had drowned in the surf. But the family still had faith and they were praying that were going to find him tomorrow.”

There is another cultural element Mann has to deal with, one that makes him deeply uncomfortable: the family is scared of him. This man who has turned up in a Warriors’ branded car is a man of authority and importance. They have let him down.

“There was certainly a feeling from the family that they thought they were in trouble because, ‘We’ve lost Sonny, we’ve lost one of your players, one of your star players’.”

Mann has a difficult balancing act. He is dealing with a deeply religious family who are asking God to keep their son alive while believing they are in serious trouble with the Warriors. He has to remain pragmatic, yet sensitive.

He returns to his car, the only quiet spot he could find, and starts making the sort of calls nobody wants to receive.

He rings Cleary and Wayne Scurrah, the chief executive of the club.

“I tried to make it as matter-of-fact as possible,” Mann recalls. “Sonny’s dead, we need to meet in the morning.”