In memory of Ryan Duffus

When the family first moved to Nambucca Heads in 2004, a 12-year-old Ryan came across a young damsel in distress whose cat was trapped down a stormwater drain.

He was down there in a flash without any concern for himself, while the little girl gingerly held the grate open.

With kitty in tow, he made his valiant return, but the grate came down too soon and scraped up the side of his face – an injury which required gluing and left a permanent scar in honour of his chivalry.

“He was always trying to help people,” Ryan’s mum Margaret said, smiling.

“And he was always getting into scrapes – there are so many stories that end in hospital visits.”

Two weeks ago it was Ryan that needed saving.

In a Perth workplace accident on October 17 that is still under investigation, the 26-year-old plumber found himself stuck down a trench at a wastewater treatment plant in Mosman Park, while a deluge from a burst water main filled the space around him.

His workmates and passers-by frantically tried to help, throwing down pipes for him to use as a snorkel.

“Some of them jumped in and tried to pull him out. And there was a guy on a big digger that was trying to scoop the water out,” Ryan’s fiancée, Anita Condran said.

Tragically, nothing they did could save him.

When the police pulled up out the front of their place, Anita waved at them, oblivious to what had occurred.

The pair had been madly saving for their wedding and their dream life back in Nambucca: building a house, making babies and buying a boat with the goal of learning to wakeboard.

The pair were Nambucca High School sweethearts, and Anita had more than paid her dues, waiting for a decade for Ryan to hurry up and pop the big question.

When he finally proposed while they were back home last Christmas, it was at the Nambucca Headland overlooking Main Beach – a special place where the two had spent many an evening over a box of pizza and some good tunes.

“It was very romantic, and he asked my mum for permission – she really liked that,” Anita said.

“He was very loving, very respectful. We had our routines, like, I’d cook him dinner and he’d touch my feet. 

“Sometimes I’d catch him watching cartoons in the morning and he’d look really embarrassed. We always had showers together – he said it saved water!

“He was the love of my life and I am completely lost and heartbroken without him. My life will never be the same.”

Despite packing up their home in Perth, Anita said she can’t ever return to live in Nambucca.

“It was our place, and there’s too many memories. They’re good memories, and I want to keep them that way,” she said.

For Ryan’s mum, dad, sister, and brother, the reality of losing him is yet to sink in fully.

“We were all gutted...devastated...heartbroken when we found out,” Margaret said.

“But it also still doesn’t feel real.”

Sitting around the Duffus’ table in Nambucca Heads, talk again turns to the kind of person Ryan was.

His sister Sarah said that, like all older brothers, he could be relied upon to be a pain in the butt. 

“But he was a very doting uncle,” she said.

“Yeah the way he was with his nephews and nieces made me so clucky,” Anita said.

“He had a very dry sense of humour,” Margaret said.

“He was incredibly imaginative which came from being a good reader. He was also very artistic – he designed all of his own tattoos, and he once painted a mural on the surf club wall.”

Ryan seemed to be involved in everything – one wonders how he fit everything in: He was a Nipper from the minute he set foot in the Nambucca, and later patrolled the local beaches; Like his pop, Barry Duffus, he was a proud member of Lions Club International; He was a Rooster for six years or so, and, while he was they won every year. 

“He always had to bring down the biggest kid on the other team,” Margaret said.

And, like his older brother Blake, he was a supreme woodchopper; Ryan had been on the NSW U21 side and competed in the State of Origin woodchopping against Qld.

“He loved his woodwork. He was always going to be a tradie – he had a hammer in his hand since he could walk,” Margaret said.

And he was good at what he did. Ryan was ranked in the top 10 plumbing apprentices in NSW in his final year with Nambucca Plumbing.

While working for Vivian Plumbing in Perth over the past two years, Ryan had impressed so much with his skills that he was tasked with training up new apprentices.

Some of his tools have now been given to those apprentices, and the rest have been donated to a men’s page for those struggling to make ends meet.

Ryan is making his way home to Nambucca this evening. 

A Go Fund Me page has been set up by the Master Plumbers and Gasfitters Association of WA and Vivian Plumbing to help fund the exorbitant costs involved in transporting him back home.

Anyone wishing to celebrate Ryan’s life is welcome to attend his memorial service this Friday from 10am at the Lions Lookout on the Nambucca Headland.

The family asks that attendees wear bright colours and consider donating to the Movember Foundation in lieu of flowers.

The Guardian News team would like to express our sincere condolences to the Duffus family during this harrowing time.