{"id":303083,"date":"2026-02-26T11:26:13","date_gmt":"2026-02-26T11:26:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/303083\/"},"modified":"2026-02-26T11:26:13","modified_gmt":"2026-02-26T11:26:13","slug":"waikato-river-rescue-seven-people-pulled-from-water-near-taupo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/303083\/","title":{"rendered":"Waikato River rescue: Seven people pulled from water near Taup\u014d"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"hVvnDVwvKaDCbCnNag\" style=\"display:none\">Police were able to talk with the seven people in distress and contacted the Coastguard and harbourmaster.<\/p>\n<p class=\"hVvnDVwvKaDCbCnNag\" style=\"display:none\">Using a jetboat and a jetski, Police, Coastguard and the harbourmaster rescued the seven people, who were hanging onto a tree.<\/p>\n<p class=\"hVvnDVwvKaDCbCnNag\" style=\"display:none\">Taup\u014d Senior Constable Barry Shepherd said the group could have had a far more serious outcome.<\/p>\n<p><img  alt=\" Senior Constable Barry Shepherd. Photo \/ supplied\" class=\"article-media__image responsively-lazy\" data-test-ui=\"article-media__image\"\/> Senior Constable Barry Shepherd. Photo \/ supplied<\/p>\n<p class=\"hVvnDVwvKaDCbCnNag\" style=\"display:none\">\u201cWe want people to have fun and enjoy the outdoors but there\u2019s a safe way to do it.<\/p>\n<p class=\"hVvnDVwvKaDCbCnNag\" style=\"display:none\">\u201cWhile it\u2019s admirable that people tried to help, we don\u2019t want any dead heroes.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"hVvnDVwvKaDCbCnNag\" style=\"display:none\">The agencies had brought  all seven people to safety by 8pm.<\/p>\n<p class=\"hVvnDVwvKaDCbCnNag\" style=\"display:none\">\u201cI commend the Coastguard, harbourmaster and my police colleagues, whose quick thinking and coordinated response ensured these seven people were safely rescued,\u201d Shepherd said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"hVvnDVwvKaDCbCnNag\" style=\"display:none\">\u201cThis situation could have been drastically worse, and their actions prevented a potential tragedy.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"hVvnDVwvKaDCbCnNag\" style=\"display:none\">Police remind the public tocall 111 immediately for any water-related emergency.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Police were able to talk with the seven people in distress and contacted the Coastguard and harbourmaster. Using&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":303084,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[71,42,3180,43,384,26525,8527,6739,202,1852,40,38,41,39,1524,376],"class_list":{"0":"post-303083","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-from","9":"tag-headlines","10":"tag-near","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-people","13":"tag-pulled","14":"tag-rescue","15":"tag-river","16":"tag-seven","17":"tag-taup","18":"tag-top-news","19":"tag-top-stories","20":"tag-topnews","21":"tag-topstories","22":"tag-waikato","23":"tag-water"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/303083","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=303083"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/303083\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/303084"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=303083"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=303083"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=303083"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}