The North Otago woman who died with her 3-year-old son on Sunday after their tractor drove into a reservoir was pregnant with her third child, her heartbroken husband has revealed.
"Words can't actually describe that actual minute of realising what happened - I knew the tractor was in the water, they were trapped in the cab," widower Scott Tomlinson told NZ Herald.
He's now left to raise their 18-month-old son Sam and run their family farm alone.
"It's been really tough," he said. "I have now lost three people."
The bodies of Nadine Tomlinson, 33, and son Angus were recovered from the reservoir by a police dive squad on Monday, one day after Ms Tomlinson appears to have lost control of the tractor with both in it.
Mr Tomlinson said his wife was a safe driver and he believes the tractor malfunctioned as she worked the farm at their rural Waihemo property.
The mourning father said his wife was his "rock" and his son was his "best mate" - a bubbly, curious kid who brought joy to everyone around him.
"There's a massive hole," he told The Herald. "I will miss everything about them."
Federated Farmers national president Katie Milne told 1 NEWS earlier this week that it is too soon to consider calling for changes to regulations involving farm machinery and children, and said children had always helped out on the farm.
"Kids are on farms - it is part of the fabric of rural New Zealand, that our kids can be out there with us. But this is a completely different sort of tragedy than we normally would expect.
"Any one of them is terrible. We don't want any, but inevitably from time to time we do have to face them."
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