A doctor and former James Cook University medicine professor drowned off South Bruny Island after swimming out in cold water to retrieve his drifting dinghy, a coroner has found.
Dennis Robert Pashen, 74, died on November 23, 2023 in Great Taylors Bay near Kingfisher Beach.
He had been on a day sail with his wife aboard their 36-foot wooden yacht Andromeda.
Coroner Leigh Mackey ruled the death an accidental drowning.
Pashen had moved to Tasmania in 2013 and was working as a medical locum in regional areas at the time of his death.
The couple had anchored in the bay that afternoon and taken their inflatable dinghy ashore for a walk with their dog.
When they returned about 15 minutes later, the dinghy had drifted 70 to 100 metres offshore.
Pashen, described in the findings as a confident and competent swimmer, stripped down to boardshorts and a T-shirt and swam out after it.
The weather was warm and calm, but the water temperature was just 15.3 degrees.
His wife watched from the beach as the dinghy drifted further away and her husband appeared to get into difficulty. She called emergency services.
A rescue helicopter arrived about 40 minutes later and found Pashen floating face down about 500 metres from where he had entered the water.
He was winched from the sea and confirmed deceased.
A nearby sailor heard the maritime radio alert from his yacht in Mickeys Bay and launched his tender within 10 minutes.
He towed the drifting dinghy back to Andromeda as the helicopter crew winched Pashen’s body from the water.
A forensic pathologist found Pashen died from “drowning due to hypothermia and exercise-caused exhaustion”.
An underlying coronary condition could not be ruled out as a contributing factor.
The coroner found the dinghy had not been tied off, anchored or otherwise secured at the beach. Pulling it up the sand was not enough to stop it drifting away.
Mackey made no formal recommendations but acknowledged the sailor’s efforts in responding “without hesitation” to the distress call.
