Jones had been house-sitting the property and was working on February 13 to make it \u201cimmaculate\u201d for the owners, who were due to return the next day.<\/p>\n
Susane Caccioppoli died in the Napier flooding from Cyclone Gabrielle.<\/p>\n
Caccioppoli came around to help him and Jones described how they both became trapped in the house as floodwaters rapidly rose around them.<\/p>\n
They were eventually forced to take refuge in the roof space, where they had a conversation about how they had no way to escape and were likely to die.<\/p>\n
Caccioppoli said \u201cIt\u2019s okay, I\u2019m happy\u201d, before calling her daughter on her phone.<\/p>\n
She handed her phone to Jones so that he could take a \u201clast photo\u201d.<\/p>\n
As he tried to do this, the house started to break apart.<\/p>\n
\u201cAll I could see were roof trusses snapping around me,\u201d Jones told the inquest.<\/p>\n
Caccioppoli\u2019s daughter, Bianka-Lee Bryan, told the court about being on the receiving end of the phone call.<\/p>\n
\u201cI heard a massive crash. I started screaming and asked her what the crash was. She told me to try to get help.\u201d<\/p>\n
The phone call then ended.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe was the best Mum. A very kind person,\u201d Bryan said.<\/p>\n
She told the inquest that she spent the next two days without sleep, searching for her mother.<\/p>\n
Bryan gained the first information about what had happened to her from media reports.<\/p>\n
She was told on February 16 that a body had been found but Caccioppoli was not formally identified until February 19.<\/p>\n
Jones tells of trying to hold onto friend<\/p>\n
As the house broke apart, Jones said he grabbed hold of Caccioppoli and told her not to let go of him.<\/p>\n
As the water took them away from the house, he had her in a lifesaving position and they managed to keep together as they were swept through the shelterbelt.<\/p>\n
Gareth Jones was lucky to survive the floodwaters, but his friend Susane Caccioppoli died. Photo \/ RNZ, Reece Baker<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was like being beaten by boys with sticks. It was torture,\u201d Jones said, but he still had a hold of his friend as they came out the other side.<\/p>\n
Then Jones felt something hit his head and his foot became snagged, dragging him underwater.<\/p>\n
He felt \u201cimmense pain\u201d as he ripped his foot from whatever was holding him down. <\/p>\n
After he resurfaced, he looked around for Caccioppoli but could not see her.<\/p>\n
Then, after a while, he felt his feet hit gravel and he managed to scramble on to a pile of stones.<\/p>\n
After being rescued, he was taken to hospital and then allowed home for a few days before being readmitted when his wounded foot developed necrosis.<\/p>\n
Long-running inquiry<\/p>\n
The aftermath of massive flooding that swept through the Esk Valley during Cyclone Gabrielle. Photo \/ RNZ, Sally Murphy<\/p>\n
Coroner Erin Woolley resumed hearings in Hastings today in a long-running inquiry into deaths linked to the extreme weather events of early 2023.<\/p>\n
She is investigating the circumstances surrounding 19 deaths altogether.<\/p>\n
Four people died during the Auckland Anniversary weekend floods a fortnight before the cyclone. Nine died as Cyclone Gabrielle battered the east coast. Two firefighters were killed at Muriwai.<\/p>\n
The coroner is also investigating the disappearance of a man driving from Napier to Gisborne on the night of Cyclone Gabrielle and three later deaths suspected to have been suicides. <\/p>\n
Ric Stevens spent many years working for the former New Zealand Press Association news agency, including as a political reporter at Parliament, before holding senior positions at various daily newspapers. He joined NZME\u2019s Open Justice team in 2022 and is based in Hawke\u2019s Bay.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Freezing cold, after being separated from Caccioppoli, Jones managed to get to a pile of stones near the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":376938,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[4496,4995,3246,196575,33959,1359,21818,145084,12632,33960,144859,28162,78,2176,11556,111,43,139,69,1118,56820,196576,196573,14484,196574,19875,8229,4495,3608],"class_list":{"0":"post-376937","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-zealand","8":"tag-attempt","9":"tag-away","10":"tag-both","11":"tag-caccioppoli","12":"tag-cyclone","13":"tag-described","14":"tag-desperate","15":"tag-floodwaters","16":"tag-friend","17":"tag-gabrielle","18":"tag-gareth","19":"tag-hold","20":"tag-in","21":"tag-jones","22":"tag-losing","23":"tag-new-zealand","24":"tag-news","25":"tag-newzealand","26":"tag-nz","27":"tag-of","28":"tag-onto","29":"tag-raging","30":"tag-relates","31":"tag-survivor","32":"tag-susane","33":"tag-swept","34":"tag-they","35":"tag-unsuccessful","36":"tag-were"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/376937","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=376937"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/376937\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/376938"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=376937"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=376937"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=376937"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}