“I was pinned against the rock with the water holding me in place. I had one hand free which I could use to help the students,” he said at an inquest into the death of one of the students, Karnin Petera.
“I knew I had to try to block the river flow with my body so I could stop any student that came my way and lift them over my shoulder to safety.”
A small group were stuck in the neck-deep water, one of whom the teacher managed to grab as he started to go under.
Dragged down by the current, the teacher struggled to stay upright while still holding the boy.
“The water was now pulling very hard and I started feeling the water lapping over my face.”
Terrified and fearing for his life the teacher managed to get the students out, at one stage floating a boy over the top of his own body and pulling another out of the fast flowing water and into his arms.
Once outside, he began vomiting from the water he had swallowed and broke down when a student said, “Karnin’s not here.”
The trip went ahead despite weather warnings
The 15-year-old’s death on May 2, 2023, is now the focus of the inquest before Coroner Alexander Ho at the Whangārei District Court.
Northland had been under an orange weather warning for days and it was upgraded to a heavy‑rain warning the night before the trip.
The first Whangārei Boys’ High School trip to Abbey Caves, held the previous day, had gone ahead without incident.
Staff had been tracking a three‑day forecast and a heavy rain band on MetService, and chose to leave 30 minutes earlier and limit the second excursion to one cave instead of three.
They believed the rain was due to hit Whangārei later in the afternoon.
The teacher, who has name suppression, said it was standard practice to cancel outdoor events only under red warnings, not orange.
He said Whangārei often experienced sunshine during orange alerts, and because the warning covered a broad area from Kaipara to the Cape, staff relied on localised maps showing only light rain for Whangārei.
“I had always been taught the rain radar and weather maps were far more important,” he said.
At the inquest hearing he was asked: “Were you aware an orange warning includes a statement ‘heavy rain may cause streams and rivers to rise rapidly?’”
“Yes,” he replied.
He said the boys were excited and had been briefed to stay close, communicate clearly and follow instructions.
At the entrance to Organ Cave, the water was ankle‑deep – normal, he said, based on his years of experience.
“The water was not moving any faster than normal, it was hazy brown, nothing unusual about this. I checked for landslides, there were none.”
Around 200m in, the passage split – one route rising into an upper chamber, the other dropping toward the river. The water, he said, was still stagnant.
‘It was not an option to stay’
The boys sat beneath glow worms for a brief meditation before moving on to a point known as “the squeeze”.
It was there he noticed the shift.
“I noticed the water was brown and more water was flowing and the overall noise of the cave was louder.”
Coroner Ho asked him what made him realise he needed to go, and not stay and wait it out.
“I don’t remember if I thought this is going to get worse or better, that wasn’t really my thinking at the time. It was safe to leave so we should leave,” he responded.
“The risk of staying exposes a whole other world of risk, how long do you stay for? At this point I wasn’t thinking about flash flooding, we had limited light source, no food. It was not an option to stay, it was safe to leave.”
He told them to turn back immediately, despite some disappointment.
“The students looked disappointed but it was safety first.”
The water was about 7.5cm deep, and he believed it was still safe to exit.
“The better and safer option was to exit,” he said.
“On the way out it was moving … not enough to feel like you were being pulled off your feet.”
But as the boys linked arms and kept left, the water surged.
The caves are a standard excursion for many schools in Northland.
“I was shocked at how quickly it had risen and how fast it was flowing. I had never experienced anything like this.”
He helped the boys on to a ledge as the water reached neck height.
Asked whether they could have retreated to the upper dry area, he said: “Absolutely not. The water flow had reached a point it was impossible to swim against.”
‘I was terrified’
Near the entrance, a large boulder blocked part of the exit and the boys were instructed to go around the left while he blocked the right.
“I was using my body to cover an area where the river runs down … I placed myself there with the intention of pushing any student who ended up in this area to the left and to prevent them from being submerged.
“I was terrified.”
“Many of the boys made it out the left easily, but a group got swept to the right and got into trouble.”
Students were scrambling over each other in neck‑deep water and he grabbed one boy, whose name is suppressed, by the overalls as he went under.
He became emotional as he described the moment he believes Karnin was swept away.
“Another five or so students then came down the river and basically crashed against me and each other. I think Karnin was in this group, although I can no longer recall who was in that group.”
Dragged down by the current, he struggled to stay upright as the water started to lap over his face.
“I managed to push some of the boys who were holding onto the ledge of the boulder up and over the ledge with the help of the boys that were out of the cave.
“[Suppressed] was still under my arm and I was holding onto him. I told him he must hold on.”
The student slipped underwater.
Karnin Petera’s body was located at around 9pm that evening. Photo / NZME
As the teacher tried to push him up, he began having flashbacks of his childhood and family.
“I was completely out of breath and thought I was going to die.”
He managed to get beneath the boy and push him up by the foot.
“From under the water I could feel his legs being dragged up and over and realised that he was being pulled out. I quickly placed my foot where his was stuck on the crack and had a final attempt to push my head up and out of the water. I did and got a deep breath of air. I managed to get both arms out of the water and on to a boulder and at this point I had nothing left in me but I was safe.”
When he looked back, two students remained stuck on a ledge and another clung to the boulder.
“I found secure footing and reached out to him so that I could hold both his arms and float him over the top of me into the arms of the students that were waiting on the other side.”
One of the remaining boys slipped into the water.
“I had a very firm wrist grip and I pulled him instantly out of the flow and into my arms.”
‘Karnin’s not here’
Once outside, he broke down at the realisation not all of the students had made it to safety.
He suffered multiple physical and psychological injuries and has not returned to outdoor education.
He told the coroner the growing unpredictability of weather had deeply affected him and said “Tino” remains in his heart every day.
“I have always believed that if we do not see, touch, feel, and experience the natural world, we risk losing our connection to it … It is my hope that outdoor education continues to play a vital role in connecting students with our natural world and that it can be delivered safely, even as our climate changes.
“It is my sincere hope that this process may bring you some measure of closure and that you continue to hold tightly to the memories of your beautiful son Tino.”
Shannon Pitman is a Whangārei-based reporter for Open Justice covering courts in the Te Tai Tokerau region. She is of Ngāpuhi/ Ngāti Pūkenga descent and has worked in digital media for the past five years. She joined NZME in 2023.