A group of trampers are “extremely fortunate” to have been rescued after getting lost in harsh weather near Middlemarch, police say.<\/p>\n
The five young adults were caught unprepared for the conditions last night, which\u00a0included snow, rain and gale-force winds, Senior Sergeant Blair Dalton said.<\/p>\n
“They did not have adequate clothing or supplies, and they were not experienced trampers.<\/p>\n
“They are extremely fortunate that they were able to call for help in an area with notoriously\u00a0patchy cellphone coverage.<\/p>\n
“If they hadn\u2019t been able to call for help, we may have been dealing with a tragic situation\u00a0today.”<\/p>\n
Police were now reminding anyone heading out into the great outdoors this spring to be\u00a0prepared.<\/p>\n
The group set out on their tramp to a hut late yesterday afternoon, despite “extremely poor\u00a0weather” in the area, police said in a statement.<\/p>\n
They soon got into difficulty due to the conditions and became lost.<\/p>\n
Fortunately, they were able to get cellphone reception at about 7.30pm to call for help.<\/p>\n
Police, search and rescue and local farmers were able to reach the group and walk them out.<\/p>\n
Sgt Dalton said the incident was a timely reminder to be prepared if you were heading\u00a0outdoors.<\/p>\n
“Spring weather is often unpredictable, and can still be cold and inhospitable.\u00a0Any time you head out on a tramp, no matter what time of year, you need to take basic steps\u00a0to ensure your safety.”<\/p>\n
\u2018\u2018Plan your trip and make sure you tell someone where you are going.<\/p>\n
\u2018\u2018And most importantly, check the weather before you leave, and if it\u2019s not looking good \u2014\u00a0don\u2019t risk it.<\/p>\n
Poor conditions could cost people their lives, Sgt Dalton said.<\/p>\n
\u2018\u2018We want everyone heading out to be prepared and come home safely.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A group of trampers are “extremely fortunate” to have been rescued after getting lost in harsh weather near…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":15710,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":{"0":"post-21028","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\/21028","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=21028"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21028\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15710"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21028"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21028"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21028"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}