A solo day walk turned into a rescue mission while Southland was in a state of local emergency over the long weekend.<\/p>\n
Southland police said a day walker became lost attempting the Makarewa Falls Track in Hokonui on a stormy Labour Day.<\/p>\n
Sergeant Alun Griffiths from Police Search and Rescue, Southland, said police were alerted through the iPhone emergency satellite system shortly after 5pm on Monday.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“There was significant tree fall in the area, and she\u2019d lost her way.<\/p>\n
“With limited gear and no navigational aid, we told her to stay put.”<\/p>\n
Snow was low on the bush line, and the ambient temperature was a mere two degrees, so Police responded swiftly with Land Search and Rescue teams from Gore and Invercargill.<\/p>\n
“Thankfully we found her, but she was very cold,”\u00a0Sgt Griffiths said.<\/p>\n
She was given dry clothes and hot drinks then, once sufficiently warm, was assisted out to the carpark at about 10pm.<\/p>\n
“We\u2019re lucky to have great access to stunning scenery in this part of the country,” Sgt Griffiths said.<\/p>\n
“But we recommend when people head into the bush, they do it safely.<\/p>\n
“Assess the weather and conditions and take sufficient gear for your activity.<\/p>\n
“Carry two forms of communication.<\/p>\n
“Even experienced hikers can end up in situations where they need help.”<\/p>\n
\u00a0– Allied Media\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A solo day walk turned into a rescue mission while Southland was in a state of local emergency…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":110198,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":{"0":"post-110197","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/110197","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=110197"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/110197\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/110198"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=110197"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=110197"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=110197"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}