In January 2010, two of the couple’s three children, Elise, 14, and Nicholas, 9, were struggling in the surf at a beach south of Brisbane, according to a newspaper account, when Carole, 44, entered the water to help them and apparently got caught in a riptide. Seeing his wife in trouble, Joseph, 42, tried to save her. Instead, both drowned as Elise and Nicholas and their older sister, all now safely on shore, watched in horror.

It is a pattern that is all too familiar to Richard C. Franklin, senior research fellow at the Royal Lifesaving Society in Australia, and to John H. Pearn, a senior pediatrician at Royal Children’s Hospital in Brisbane. The Western Pacific and Southeast Asia, with large populations near the water, account for six out of 10 drownings. And Franklin, in emails, says that his and Pearn’s investigations show that at least 86 potential rescuers “drowned for love” in Australian waters between 1992 to 2007.

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