{"id":207966,"date":"2025-12-30T06:59:07","date_gmt":"2025-12-30T06:59:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/207966\/"},"modified":"2025-12-30T06:59:07","modified_gmt":"2025-12-30T06:59:07","slug":"elderly-tramper-winched-to-safety-after-12-hour-kauaeranga-valley-rescue","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/207966\/","title":{"rendered":"Elderly tramper winched to safety after 12-hour Kauaeranga Valley rescue"},"content":{"rendered":"

He was wearing only shorts and a singlet and, apart from his mobile phone, was carrying no emergency supplies.<\/p>\n

Area Commander Waikato West Inspector Mike Henwood said police were alerted about 10pm. <\/p>\n

Henwood said the man called his family and his son raised the alarm.<\/p>\n

Emergency services were able to pinpoint his location, about 100m from Crosbies Hut.<\/p>\n

Henwood said a helicopter was deployed and reached the area but was unable to land because of deteriorating weather conditions.<\/p>\n

A mother and her two teenage children staying at Crosbies Hut were contacted and asked to help. They formed a human heat circle to help warm the man before returning with him to the hut to await rescue, Henwood said. <\/p>\n

\"SearchSearch and rescue teams worked for 12 hours to extract an elderly man from deep bush. Photo \/ Waih\u012b Land Search & Rescue<\/p>\n

12-hour extraction mission <\/p>\n

The Waih\u012b Land Search and Rescue team said members of LandSAR Waihi were called at 3am to assist. <\/p>\n

\u201cFour of our members teamed up with five from Thames SAR and made our way up towards Crosbies Clearing with the mule and stretcher,\u201d Waih\u012b Land Search and Rescue said. <\/p>\n

Just over four hours later, they met up with another four members from Thames SAR who had been sent up late the night before. <\/p>\n

\u201cThey had retrieved the lost party with them from Crosbies, and were very slowly walking him out.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe pulled out a fly sheet to protect the patient from the rain while we prepared the stretcher, then loaded our patient \u2018taco style\u2019 and headed back down the way we came,\u201d Waih\u012b Land Search and Rescue said. <\/p>\n

A backup team of three police SAR and some more Thames crew arrived a few hours later.<\/p>\n

\u201cWith very slippery conditions underfoot, we set up rope systems for support while we navigated down slippery slopes,\u201d they said. <\/p>\n

About five hours later, the weather cleared enough for the Auckland Westpac Helicopter to be deployed and the man was safely winched from a clearing.<\/p>\n

\"SearchSearch and rescue teams navigated some “challenging terrain” to get the elderly man to safety. Photo \/ Waih\u012b Land Search & Rescue<\/p>\n

The rescue crews were still an hour and a half from the carpark and arrived there just before dark. <\/p>\n

\u201cBig ups to our patient who was so quiet and patient while we navigated some challenging terrain.<\/p>\n

\u201cMultiple rescue organisations coming together for the same outcome \u2013 bringing the lost, missing or injured home to their families,\u201d Waih\u012b Land Search and Rescue 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":"He was wearing only shorts and a singlet and, apart from his mobile phone, was carrying no emergency…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":207967,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[99431,74,16651,23159,42503,22506,25819,15453,30643,71,11551,125677,111,43,139,69,8527,6302,1870,4412,61,4129,108852,2217,376,90878,87539],"class_list":["post-207966","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-12hour","tag-after","tag-bush","tag-challenging","tag-collapsed","tag-coromandel","tag-deep","tag-elderly","tag-extract","tag-from","tag-hours","tag-kauaeranga","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-rescue","tag-safety","tag-search","tag-teams","tag-to","tag-trail","tag-tramper","tag-valley","tag-water","tag-winched","tag-worked"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/207966","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=207966"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/207966\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/207967"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=207966"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=207966"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=207966"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}