{"id":155674,"date":"2025-11-27T02:57:11","date_gmt":"2025-11-27T02:57:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/155674\/"},"modified":"2025-11-27T02:57:11","modified_gmt":"2025-11-27T02:57:11","slug":"hypothermic-surfer-plucked-to-safety-after-drifting-1-5km-off-west-aucklands-piha-beach","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/155674\/","title":{"rendered":"Hypothermic surfer plucked to safety after drifting 1.5km off West Auckland\u2019s Piha Beach"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"JrrgOILX\" style=\"display:none\">\u201cJust after 9pm ,and in complete darkness, Eagle located a person around 1.5 kilometres offshore waving for assistance.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><img  alt=\"The surfer was located by the Police Eagle helicopter shortly after 9pm. Photo \/ Surf Life Saving New Zealand\" class=\"article-media__image responsively-lazy\" data-test-ui=\"article-media__image\"\/>The surfer was located by the Police Eagle helicopter shortly after 9pm. Photo \/ Surf Life Saving New Zealand<\/p>\n<p class=\"JrrgOILX\" style=\"display:none\">Eagle \u201clit him up in the water\u201d with search lights, allowing the IRBs to  launch again.<\/p>\n<p class=\"JrrgOILX\" style=\"display:none\">\u201cThe crew quickly collected him and made it back to the beach in complete darkness.<\/p>\n<p class=\"JrrgOILX\" style=\"display:none\">\u201cAlong with it being pitch black the crew faced two to three metre-high waves, making this an outstanding rescue effort by them.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"JrrgOILX\" style=\"display:none\">He said the surfer showed signs of hypothermia and was treated by medical professionals at the beach.<\/p>\n<p class=\"JrrgOILX\" style=\"display:none\">\u201cThe actions of Eagle and the IRB crews in the water unquestionably saved this young man\u2019s life.<\/p>\n<p class=\"JrrgOILX\" style=\"display:none\">\u201cThis was a great example of team work to carry out this rescue, under less-than-ideal conditions in the dark and bad weather.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><img  alt=\"Surf Life Saving New Zealand (SLSNZ) said it commended the \u201cexceptional teamwork and quick response\u201d of volunteer lifeguards who carried out a \u201cdramatic\u201d after-hours rescue on the 21-year-old man. Photo \/ Surf Life Saving New Zealand\" class=\"article-media__image responsively-lazy\" data-test-ui=\"article-media__image\"\/>Surf Life Saving New Zealand (SLSNZ) said it commended the \u201cexceptional teamwork and quick response\u201d of volunteer lifeguards who carried out a \u201cdramatic\u201d after-hours rescue on the 21-year-old man. Photo \/ Surf Life Saving New Zealand<\/p>\n<p class=\"JrrgOILX\" style=\"display:none\">Surf Life Saving New Zealand (SLSNZ) said it commended the \u201cexceptional teamwork and quick response\u201d of volunteer lifeguards who carried out a \u201cdramatic\u201d after-hours rescue of the 21-year-old man.<\/p>\n<p class=\"JrrgOILX\" style=\"display:none\">The man was returned safely to shore, cold and hypothermic, but conscious, where he was given initial treatment by surf lifeguards before being transported by ambulance at 10.30pm. <\/p>\n<p class=\"JrrgOILX\" style=\"display:none\">He has since been discharged from hospital.<\/p>\n<p class=\"JrrgOILX\" style=\"display:none\">\u201cExecuting an offshore rescue in the dark, after hours, is complex; it takes careful planning, cool heads &amp; exceptional capability. The Piha surf lifeguards once again demonstrated why they are among the best skilled &amp; experienced responders on our coastline,\u201d SLSNZ\u2019s general manager of lifesaving, Andy Kent, said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"JrrgOILX\" style=\"display:none\">\u201cThis rescue shows the strength of collaboration between police and our surf lifeguards. The Eagle helicopter\u2019s spotlight made the difference on a night when visibility was extremely limited. The outcome is a testament to the volunteers\u2019 skill.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"JrrgOILX\" style=\"display:none\">More to come.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cJust after 9pm ,and in complete darkness, Eagle located a person around 1.5 kilometres offshore waving for assistance.\u201d&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":155675,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[103161,74,3952,7972,1558,9525,3381,65271,25534,8455,103159,111,43,139,69,6662,73759,103160,6302,10137,61,3807],"class_list":["post-155674","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-15km","tag-after","tag-aucklands","tag-beach","tag-been","tag-caught","tag-complete","tag-darkness","tag-drifting","tag-getting","tag-hypothermic","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-off","tag-piha","tag-plucked","tag-safety","tag-surfer","tag-to","tag-west"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/155674","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=155674"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/155674\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/155675"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=155674"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=155674"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=155674"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}