Tiffany Cunningham, the man’s housemate and close friend, said he had sustained a broken rib from a farming accident prior to the incident.

“He was finding it hard to breathe earlier that day, let alone laugh,” Ms Cunningham said.

“All he wanted to do was jump into the river and cool down because it was so hot – he wasn’t even two metres from the edge.”

The man was relatively new to Wagga, having moved here with his partner and children from South Australia in September.

Ms Cunningham thanked the public for their support and asked people not to judge the man, who had only had less than two drinks when he entered the river.

“Leave the nasty comments on Facebook out of it, because it’s really affecting his partner,” Ms Cunningham said.

“She feels very guilty about the situation, although there wasn’t anything she could do about it – she couldn’t exactly jump in the river with a nine-week-old baby.

“She’s said herself that the look on his face is going to haunt her forever.”

Ms Cunningham said the family was still searching and had not given up hope yet.

“Don’t write him off just yet – he was a very good man and he wouldn’t have jumped in knowing that this was going to happen.” 

Police officially suspended the on-water search at 9:15 on Wednesday morning after search-boats and divers covered a seven kilometre area.

The Westpac Lifesaver Rescue Helicopter arrived from the South Coast at about 1:30pm to conduct a final aerial sweep of 15 to 20 kilometres of the river.

Acting Inspector Nigel Turney said there was not much more emergency services could do beyond that final search.

“At this point, police have searched the water and searched the banks, now we'll do an aerial search, and that pretty much is going to exhaust all avenues we have,” Acting Inspector Turney said.

“We've got limitations in terms of resources and that type of stuff, and at the end of the day, it's been a very detailed and comprehensive search of the area.

“We've had boats on the water, we've had divers under the water, and we've had police on the banks to check whether he may have gotten out at some point.”

Related coverage: