{"id":197597,"date":"2025-12-23T05:51:05","date_gmt":"2025-12-23T05:51:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/197597\/"},"modified":"2025-12-23T05:51:05","modified_gmt":"2025-12-23T05:51:05","slug":"hutt-river-rescue-three-men-saved-after-night-stranded-in-gorge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/197597\/","title":{"rendered":"Hutt River rescue: Three men saved after night stranded in gorge"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cThey happened to be able to get a glimmer of cellphone reception and called for assistance about 7.30pm,\u201d Westrupp said. <\/p>\n

He said police co-ordinated a search and rescue operation to rescue them as the weather worsened.<\/p>\n

\u201cA New Zealand Defence Force NH90 helicopter was sent, but it couldn\u2019t get to them because of low cloud and rain setting in.<\/p>\n

\u201cLand Search and Rescue and police reached the three men about three in the morning and provided them with shelter, clothing and food. At first light, with the aid of Wellington Rafting, we were able to get them out of there,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\"HuttHutt River. Photo \/ Mark Mitchell<\/p>\n

Westrupp said the men were grateful to see rescuers, but it was an uncomfortably close call.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey were on the verge of not being able to contact anyone. If they hadn\u2019t managed to find a scrap of cellphone coverage in the gorge it could have been a very different Christmas for them and their families,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

Westrupp advised Kiwis who are planning to go out on an excursion in the bush or adventure on rivers to be prepared for any eventuality.<\/p>\n

\u201cPLBs (personal locator beacons) are cheap to hire, and they\u2019re capable of saving your life, even when there\u2019s no cellphone reception,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

Sign up to The Daily H<\/a>, a free newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cThey happened to be able to get a glimmer of cellphone reception and called for assistance about 7.30pm,\u201d…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":197598,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[74,1348,4509,18089,44192,121901,49947,78,3605,111,43,139,2551,69,46614,8527,6739,17162,121902,12633,12507,1529,68415,6123,4741],"class_list":["post-197597","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-after","tag-cellphone","tag-cold","tag-dramatic","tag-floating","tag-gorge","tag-hutt","tag-in","tag-men","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-night","tag-nz","tag-reception","tag-rescue","tag-river","tag-saved","tag-sliver","tag-spent","tag-stranded","tag-three","tag-tubes","tag-while","tag-young"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/197597","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=197597"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/197597\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/197598"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=197597"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=197597"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=197597"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}