Family and friends are rallying around the three-time world surfing champ Mick Fanning tonight after the death of his last surviving brother Ed who was reportedly working at a surf camp in Madagascar.
Ed’s best mate, Coolangatta bodyboarder Stevie Maher, was the first to publicly announce his passing, writing on Facebook.
“Firstly I want to send my condolences to the Fanning family … mum Liz, dad John, sister Rachel and brother Mick.
“My heart is broken to hear the passing of my best mate. I enjoyed and had so many amazing times with you Eddie.You were in my wedding party, had so many epic times together in Indo and we were just best mates.”
No details on the cause of the tragedy have been released.
Nine years ago, and on the eve of a dramatic world title showdown at Pipeline, Mick Fanning received news that his older brother Peter, a daddy to three who had been suffering from a “serious hyperthyroid disease” had died in his sleep.
In 1998, Mick’s twenty-year-old brother Sean, along with another talented local surfer Joel Green, was killed in a car accident. Mick Fanning was seventeen.
From the SMH’s Will Swanton in 2008,
Four youths were in a car on the Gold Coast on August 14, 1998. Control of the vehicle was lost. There was the panic-stricken acceleration and braking of the driver, gasps of disbelief from all four passengers, the turning of the night from fun to something more sinister. There was the screeching of tyres and a collision – an almighty collision. Two passengers were in the back of the car and they both died. One of them was Joel Green. The other was Sean Fanning.
Nobody on the Gold Coast saw Mick Fanning for a while after that. Not the real Mick Fanning. Mick was offered a ride in the car that killed Sean. He declined in favour of walking. He had imagined the future. He had not imagined this.
They were so close,” their mother Liz Osborne says. Her eyes drift. “We called them ‘the little ones’. They did everything together.” Liz is a warm and lovely woman. She has an open face and curly hair. She is the type of person who will treat a stranger as though she’s known them all her life. “I hope the universe shines on him,” she says of Mick. “He’s a decent young man. He deserves it so much.”
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