A father of six died on a North Carolina beach when a huge wave broke his neck, his heartbroken family said.

Lee Dingle, 37, was playing with three of his kids in the sea off Oak Island on Friday when tragedy struck, his wife explained.

“An intense wave hit him just right to slam his head into the sand and break his neck,” Shannon Dingle wrote of the “freak accident” that she says took “my partner, my love, and my home.”

“Some heroes – including our kids – tried to save him, but it wouldn’t have mattered what they did. His body couldn’t recover from the initial injury,” she wrote.

Dingle, president of Atlas Engineering in Raleigh, died after the break made his throat swell so much that his brain was deprived of oxygen, according to an online fundraising campaign that raised more than $140,000 in two days.

“We met when I was 18 and he was 19, and we’ve been together ever since,” added his wife, a writer who calls herself a “sex trafficking survivor” in her Twitter bio.

“I wasn’t supposed to be saying goodbye at 37. I don’t know how to be a grown up without him, but I’ll learn. I just wish I didn’t have to,” she said, asking for prayers and saying she will “cuss and smash stuff.”

Dingle was an amazing dad to his six kids, including four the couple adopted, family friend April Schweitzer told WRAL.

“How he saw each child for who they were uniquely and just supported them in that, encouraged them and was just always there for them,” Schweitzer said.

She continued: “Anyone who knew him was a better person from their interactions with him.”