Hobby goldminer and American tramper rescued

A local hobby goldminer in his 30s was airlifted to hospital by the Otago Southland Rescue Helicopter late on Sunday afternoon (9 November), after suffering a seizure late morning while panning up Twelve Mile Creek on the Mount Crichton Loop Track.

The Wakatipu Alpine Cliff Rescue Team was called in to help after St John Ambulance staff and Wakatipu Search and Rescue volunteers needed assistance to winch the man out and into the waiting helicopter, Alpine Cliff Rescue team leader Karl Johnson says.

Another SAR spokesman says a St John Ambulance crew arrived around midday, Sub-Alpine SAR an hour later, followed by the Alpine Cliff Rescue volunteers in the Rescue Helicopter.

Johnson says a number of passers by ran out to cellphone coverage to raise the alarm. “They were great. They also ran out to get more gear from the ambulance.”

The man, who’d been injured when he fell, was with several friends and had been mining in a gorge area.

The crews all worked together to get him onto a stretcher and Johnson says they then used ropes to winch him from the riverbed up a steep 15m bank to the waiting helicopter. “The Search and Rescue guys and paramedics spent time packaging him ready to be winched out by helicopter,” he says. “We all had to cross the river to get to him and it was at higher levels due to all the recent rain.”

A St John spokesperson says the man was flown to Lakes District Hospital with moderate injuries.

A young American woman in her 20s had to be rescued when she became trapped beneath the road to Macetown while tramping late on Saturday afternoon (8 November).

A Wakatipu Search and Rescue spokesperson says the woman was well prepared and was tramping the Big Hill-Hayes Creek Macetown Road Track Loop. “The Arrow River was quite high, but she’d crossed it safely then couldn’t find the track above the steep bank to get up onto the Macetown Road,” he says. “She didn’t feel safe to cross back over the river so alerted emergency services via her iPhone, which had a built-in satellite service,” he says. Police called the SAR crew who made the 40-minute drive in then made their way down from the road to rescue the woman. “It was quite a tricky trip with several river crossings and the river in quite full flow, he says.

“She’d done all the right things, researched her route and was really well equipped, knowing how to cross a river safely,” he says. “She was just a little inexperienced in terms of New Zealand and that part of the track is quite tricky.”