Tragedy in Napier, New Zealand

This news from New Zealand's Dominion Post yesterday is terse and very sad:

Napier's notorious Marine Pde beach has claimed another life after a five-year-old boy was torn from his mother's grasp and dragged out to sea by a freak wave.

The boy's mother had grabbed at him but lost her grip in the force of the wave about 1pm yesterday. He was playing at the water's edge.

It's something really should not happen but happened. It's so preventable. The "water's edge" is an extremely dangerous place is a fact that everyone knows, the warning is out there, but until it happens -- everyone probably thinks it will only happen to others. Again I can not emphasize it more strongly: It can happen at any water's edge in the world and at any time. No amount of vigilance will be sufficient!