SEPANG – A day before he died while trying to save two girls from drowning in a river, Mr Mohd Faizal Mahasan suggested that he and his wife go for a walk to catch the sunset.

“Let’s go on a honeymoon and a picnic,” Ms Nur Fatihah Mohamad, 26, recounted her husband as saying.

The same night he made the suggestion, he went out to buy mats and asked her to fry some snacks for their picnic, she told Harian Metro news agency.

“I didn’t think that was going to be my last moments with my late husband,” Ms Nur Fatihah said.

Mr Mohd Faizal, 29, drowned on Sunday while trying to save two girls who had been swept away at Sungai Sepang Kechil, a river in the Malaysian state of Selangor.

At the time of the incident, he and his wife were walking along the river near a group of children who were swimming.

Suddenly, they were alerted by two fishermen nearby that two girls were drowning in the river.

Ms Nur Fatihah said her husband ran off and jumped into the river to rescue the girls.

Malaysian media reports say he managed to pull the older girl, aged nine, out of the water and then went back into the water for the younger girl, aged seven.

Ms Nur Fatihah said the last time she saw her husband, he was frantically calling out to her, shouting “ayang”, or darling, as he waved his hands in the water, “as if asking for help”.

He was swept away and disappeared thereafter.

Mr Mohd Faizal’s body was recovered on Monday morning, about 500m away.

The Selangor Fire and Rescue Department said the nine-year-old girl died at the scene, while her younger sister’s body was retrieved some 50m away.