19 Jan 2011

Australian flood victim Jordan Rice is buried in Queensland

Jonathan Miller reports from Toombawoomba, where Jordan Rice, 13, was buried today with his mother, in the first of the funerals for the victims of last weeks floods.

There are few things so terribly sad to witness as a father burying his son. That is what happened in the Queensland town of Toowoomba today, where John Tyson laid to rest his son Jordan Rice.

To the strains of Eric Clapton’s “Tears in Heaven”, Mr Tyson laid Jordan’s coffin on top of that of Donna, Jordan’s mother. They’d drowned in the family’s white Mercedes car last Monday, as a wall of water crashed through Toowoomba’s business district – a terrifying flashflood that Australian’s dubbed “an inland Tsunami.”

Dressed in black and flanked by Blake, his tearful surviving son, John Tyson said: “The fire in my heart will continue to burn until my time comes to join them. I don’t think I can put into words just how much I miss them.” He’d hailed Jordan as “my little hero”.

Australian hero

Australians have gone one futher, conferring on the teenager national hero status. Jordan, who was petrified of water and couldn’t swim, insisted that a rescuer who’d made it to their car, save his little brother first.

The Facebook page RIP Jordan Rice, serves as an online condolence book. The tributes to the teenager hero are moving. “Rest in Peace Jordan, I hope my son grows up to be even half the boy you were,” says one. “Rest forever in the protective arms of your mother in a circle of angels. You more than deserve your wings.”

An emergency services worker writes that Jordan’s is “the most inspirational story of heroism I have ever heard about.” Another talks about how he’d “touched the world with his bravery.” One simply says: “Rest in peace little hero; a true Aussie hero.”

Among the mourners at the cemetery today: Warren McErlean, the man who’d rescued Blake and attempted – in vain – to save his brother and mother too. A reporter for Brisbane’s Courier-Mail wrote that: “He threw a comforting arm around Blake.”

Shortly after the incident, Mr McErlean told an interviewer: “It’s just terrible. I just kept telling the boy it was going to be alright and it wasn’t. I feel very sorry for the boy andh is family and that we couldn’t do some more and get them out.”

Today Jordan’s coffin was placed on the grave on top of his mothers, to symbolise a child lying in his mother’s arms. Mourners released coloured ballooons into the sky.

Australia Floods photo gallery - Jonathan Miller
Photos from our Foreign Affairs Correspondent, Jonathan Miller, of the devastation he's witnessed in Australia.

Brisbane residents gather on a bridge to watch as the Brisbane River floods the CBD