Parapenter plunges 40m on rocky terrain

A very experienced local female parapenter is very lucky to be alive after being blown backwards in a wind gust off the top of Mount Earnslaw on take-off late last week, bouncing 40m down steep, rocky terrain.

“She’s just very lucky that she didn’t end up a few thousand feet below the rocky gully where she landed,” Wakatipu Alpine Cliff Rescue team co-ordinator Russ Tilsley says.

“As she put her chute up the wind gust yanked her backwards and she bounced down a steep rocky area, falling about 40m.”

The specialist rescue team was called in about 11am last Thursday (6 March) after an alert from a personal locator beacon (PLB), and five team members were flown in by Heliworks.

The woman’s helmet smashed from the impact, and she has stitches in her head, a couple of fractures to the vertebrae in her back and has pulled a ligament in her foot, Tilsley says. She’s now recovering from her injuries.

The team long lined her off the rocky terrain near the summit which is 9000 feet (2743.2m), her parapente still attached.

“There was another guy with her and fortunately they had an InReach (satellite communications device enabling SOS messaging),” Tilsley says. “We got her onto a stretcher then Heliworks flew her out on a longline to where the paramedics were waiting.”

It's been a busy few weeks for the Queenstown team, called to two other major rescues, including the technical rescue of three Israeli men off U Pass in Fiordland, the rescue delayed overnight due to bad weather. Tilsley says it was the same night of the Brewster Glacier tragedy in Mount Aspiring National Park when a French female hiker died in a fall about 7pm on 20 February.

The three Israelis became trapped on U Pass, near Mistaken Creek off the Eglinton Valley. Tilsley says a Te Anau rescue helicopter couldn’t get in to retrieve the men, separated in two groups in very steep terrain. “They needed a team in there on the ground.”

The three were stranded overnight in very bad weather, eight Queenstown rescuers setting off at 7am the next morning.

“We found two groups about 100m apart – two in one and one guy alone. We put four of us down to each site on a long line then all three were long lined by Heliworks to terrain where we could pick them up,” Tilsley says. “They’d been there all night huddled in steep terrain, wet and cold but in good spirits.”

The men were “quite cold” by the time their rescuers arrived, but were prepared, although not with a lot of warm gear. “They did have sleeping bags and the right gear.”

“It’s a route not a walking track and they went the wrong way into some steep bluffy terrain. Up is easy but they couldn’t get down as it was just too steep.”

Thankfully, they also had an InReach device, so the Rescue Coordination Centre could keep in contact with them.

Heliworks flew them down to an awaiting Otago Southland Rescue Helicopter with a paramedic on board. “They were fine and flown back to Manapouri.”

 

A Maritime NZ spokesperson says the RCC received the InReach SOS alert just after 6.30pm that three people were “bluffed” on the northern side of Triangle Peak.

After several failed attempts to rescue the party, the experienced helicopter crew made the decision to call in the Wakatipu Alpine Cliff Rescue (ACR Team) due to the terrain and weather.

“These are highly experienced operators, who were focused on getting the bluffed party back to safety,” he says. “They always put safety first and it just wasn’t possible during the initial attempts to get the party safely out,” he says.

Conditions and fading daylight meant the party had to spend the night on the side of Triangle Peak.

The Queenstown specialists also helped rescue a stranded Te Anau hunter in his early 30s from Mount Burns at the back of Borland Saddle in Fiordland around midday on Sunday (9 March).

“He’d climbed up a steep, slippery bluffy escarpment onto a ledge, thinking he could get above it, then became stuck,” Tilsley says. “He couldn’t get up or down or step to either side. He was 6m from the ridge above and thought if he tried to reach it he could fall and die.”

He was getting tired so called for assistance. “He totally made the right call.” He too had an InReach device.

Tilsley says people need to be aware, prepared, and well equipped.

“The French woman on the Brewster Glacier hike was not the first backpacker to die there,” he says. “There’s no track once you leave Brewster Hut, it’s steep, rocky terrain. She only fell about 6m or 7m.”

This tragedy is with the coroner and investigations are ongoing as to the circumstances.

Tilsley says the Brewster Glacier is popular with Instagrammers. “People are sometimes going beyond their capabilities to get the perfect shot.

“It's a spectacular place and people can walk inside the glacier but it’s very dangerous and while it looks great, it claims multiple lives.”