In early 2026, the helicopter had been called to four tramping or hunting-related missions in the past two months alone.<\/p>\n
Sharpe had tramped through the North Island for 20 or so years with no issues, but last year he almost didn\u2019t make it home.<\/p>\n
He\u2019d planned a five-day loop in an area he\u2019d walked before and was confident he\u2019d complete it thanks to the reasonable route he\u2019d picked.<\/p>\n
He enjoyed the first three days without any issues.<\/p>\n
But midway through day four, Sharpe felt something was off.<\/p>\n
\u201cI began to struggle to achieve a sensible distance between breaks and felt very weary over a short period of time, despite being well hydrated and eating well,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cHallucinating there was a zebra on the path at one point really brought it home that I would likely be in a bad way if I managed to complete day four, and day five was really not looking good.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sharpe knew if he collapsed, he could be lost in the bush for a significant amount of time before, or if, he was found.<\/p>\n
He activated his beacon (PLB) and within 20 minutes the Hawke\u2019s Bay Rescue Helicopter was overhead.<\/p>\n
Sharpe said the relief was palpable.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe sound of the helicopter coming to get me really was like an angel from heaven coming to the rescue.\u201d<\/p>\n
Air crew officer Michaela Horsefield winched Sharpe out.<\/p>\n
She said hallucinating while tramping was a significant red flag, indicating the brain was under physiological stress.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn wilderness settings, symptoms like confusion, visual disturbances, extreme fatigue, or poor co-ordination should be treated as warning signs to stop, shelter, and consider calling for help.\u201d<\/p>\n
After returning to civilisation, Sharpe was diagnosed with a lingering bronchial infection and made a quick recovery.<\/p>\n
He said his experience taught him valuable lessons.<\/p>\n
\u201cListen to your body and to what it is telling you \u2013 if something doesn\u2019t feel quite right or your body is not responding as it normally would then listen to it earlier rather than later.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sharpe said he always carries a PLB and plans tramps carefully by checking the weather, route with contingencies in place, making sure the route is comfortable and doable.<\/p>\n
The Hawke\u2019s Bay Rescue Helicopter crew are now urging anyone planning tramping or hunting trips around Hawke\u2019s Bay in autumn or winter to invest in a PLB before setting out on their trips.<\/p>\n
Horsefield said if Sharpe didn\u2019t have a PLB on him, efforts to find him may not have begun until 12 to 48 hours later, he may\u2019ve tried to self-rescue, risking worse injuries and exposing him to further danger, or he may not have been found at all.<\/p>\n
She said a PLB \u201csignificantly improves survival chances\u201d by sending an exact GPS distress signal to rescuers, allowing them to respond directly to the person\u2019s location.<\/p>\n
\u201cCarrying a PLB and listening to early body signals are key safety measures, especially during multi-day autumn tramps when conditions can change quickly.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In early 2026, the helicopter had been called to four tramping or hunting-related missions in the past two…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":339742,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[74,1561,181684,682,16651,3595,118499,25819,2842,1668,1976,8788,16718,26641,6451,181683,111,43,139,69,31472,8527,17162,9636,108852,25728,1316,121797],"class_list":["post-339741","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-after","tag-bay","tag-beacons","tag-being","tag-bush","tag-by","tag-chopper","tag-deep","tag-experienced","tag-front","tag-hawkes","tag-highlights","tag-him","tag-importance","tag-knew","tag-locator","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-path","tag-rescue","tag-saved","tag-spotted","tag-tramper","tag-trouble","tag-when","tag-zebra"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/339741","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=339741"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/339741\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/339742"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=339741"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=339741"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=339741"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}