"Lucky to be alive” is how Whanganui Search and Rescue O/C Sergeant Colin Wright described a hunter after a major search and rescue operation was mounted when he failed to return home.
Saturday 14 October started as a good day out hunting with friends for the 59-year-old man.
The group were hunting on a private block at Taumatatahi, a two-hour drive northwest from Whanganui, and while his friends went in one direction on foot, the man went in a different direction on his quad bike.
When he didn’t return that evening, his friends and some locals started a search and contacted Police.
Colin says Detective John Ferguson worked through the night, planning and preparing for a search through challenging terrain at first light on the Sunday.
“The Whanganui Police SAR Squad and seven volunteers from Whanganui and Taranaki LandSAR, including a LandSAR dog and handler, drove to the private block and started searching on the Sunday,” says Colin.
“They were well-supported from the Whanganui Police Station by Constable Janna Benson and Senior Constable Keith Thomson who were the Incident Management Team liaising with the DCC, the man’s family, and the Rescue Coordination Centre NZ.
“It was fortunate that the landowner is a pilot for a local firm, and he had flown first thing on the Sunday morning but hadn’t found anything.”
Search teams provided first aid to the man while wiating for the rescue helicopter.
Once more information was gathered, the helicopter deployed again with three spotters, including Colin, the pilot’s wife and his ground crewman.
An extensive aerial search was conducted of likely locations and once this was completed the search extended beyond where the hunter may have been.
This proved fortuitous as one of the spotters saw a fresh pair of deer’s hind legs lying on the ground in a location where it wasn’t thought the hunter would have been.
“A short distance away and halfway down a very steep slope, we found the hunter lying face down and motionless,” says Colin.
“The pilot dropped off the crewman and I so we could assess the man and upon reaching him, we discovered he was still alive but in a very bad way.
“Every minute counted, and we contacted the Taranaki Rescue helicopter which arrived just over an hour later. It was a very emotional time when we got to him and saved him.”
The rescue helicopter team winched down a paramedic who assessed the hunter, before preparing him for winching and transport to Whanganui Hospital with the assistance of Detective Jason Wakeling.
Before the rescue helicopter transported the man to hospital, it had to land on a nearby flat open area so medics could stabilise him again due to the severity of his injuries, which included hypothermia, a fractured neck and ribs, a severely fractured leg and a dislocated knee.
He also had severe back injuries, a collapsed lung and air around his heart and in his chest cavity (pneumomediastinum). After landing at Whanganui Hospital he was transported to Wellington Hospital where he remains in a stable but critical condition.
The man’s quad bike was a long way away from where he was found, and it appears he had fallen down the steep slope while potentially trying to retrieve a deer.
“He is lucky to be alive and is on the road to a long and slow recovery,” says Colin.
“While his injuries are severe, the SAR teams and I are thankful to have found him alive and his partner was very supportive of Police and the LandSAR volunteers. She thanked us for the professional and caring teamwork she witnessed.”