SHAH ALAM, MALAYSIA - Just 45 minutes before the car crash in New Zealand that took his life, Shafiee Ahmad sent a cheerful text message to his wife.

"He sent a text message to my mum at 2.15pm (Malaysian time). He sent her a joke and said he was going out with several students to take some scenery shots," said Mohd Zulhusni, 19, the eldest of Shafiee's four children, at their home yesterday.

Dean Shafiee Ahmad

His mother, Sarimah Suhaimi, 45, was too traumatised over her loss to speak to reporters.

The 51-year-old deputy dean of student affairs at the communications and media studies faculty of Universiti Teknologi Mara was killed along with 21-year-old student Mariam Sakinah Ahmad in a collision with a lorry at South Waikato. Four people were injured in the crash, two of them seriously.

Zulhusni said the family was told of the accident by one of the students in the group about 6pm.

The family tried to reach Shafiee on his handphone.

"We thought he was still alive, but at 9pm we got another text message from a student saying that my father had died.

"We couldn't believe it, until we got the confirmation from another lecturer who was at the hospital."

He said his father looked stern, but he was a happy man and made friends easily.

"He loved to travel. And he was passionate about photography. He was the patron of the faculty's photography club, which had organised the trip to New Zealand."

He was due back tomorrow and had planned to take the children to Taiping to celebrate Hari Raya Aidiladha with their grandmother.

Zulhusni said his father's body was expected to arrive later today. He will be buried at the Muslim cemetery in Section 21.

Amirul Rashid Abd Razak, 21, and 20-year-old Khairul Fitri Mohd are in serious condition at Waikato Hospital's intensive care unit. Nor Aishah Razi, 21, and Siti Murni Ayu Mohd, 23, received outpatient treatment.

Siti Murni and Khairul Fitri are siblings and are not students of the communications and media studies faculty.

Another three lecturers and a student in the group decided not to go along on the side trip, and had stayed behind at the hotel.

They were on a 10-day study trip to several universities in New Zealand and to complete a photography project there.