The man\u2019s vehicle appeared to be caught on a stump, with the full force of the water pushing into the vehicle\u2019s side, Taite said.<\/p>\n
\u201c[It was] very dark, very cold, driving rain – not a comfortable place to be hanging out.\u201d<\/p>\n
Between the man and safety were several willow trees, and \u201cquite a bit of flood debris \u2026 logs and branches coming down\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere were quite a lot of willows downstream and what we call strainers, so things that if you get pinned against them in the flow can be quite dangerous. <\/p>\n
\u201cAnd then the flow was also pushing into a bluff system further down and redirecting, so there\u2019s quite a hazardous piece of water downstream from us.\u201d<\/p>\n
Using a tethered system on an inflatable boat, the rescuers reached an eddy on the far side of the swift water where they could operate from a safe zone and access a bridge.<\/p>\n
From there, they were able to wade to the car, Taite said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere was quite a swift channel across there. We used a group wading technique which uses strength in numbers to break the flow with a tethered system \u2026 so if [anyone] did lose their footing we could swing them back in.\u201d<\/p>\n
They weren\u2019t able to speak to the man until reaching the car around 7am, and were relieved to find him \u201cin good spirits\u201d, Taite said.<\/p>\n
A motorist was saved from raging floodwaters near Mt Lyford. Photo \/ Fire and Emergency New Zealand<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019d been in there for some time before we could access him, so hypothermia was a very real possibility.\u201d <\/p>\n
The man was put in a life jacket and walked back through knee-deep water to the bridge, with rescuers using a \u201cflying V\u201d technique with one rescuer in front and two on each side, breaking the flow of water around the man.<\/p>\n
At the bridge, where the water was ankle-deep, the man was put in the rescue boat and pulled across the \u201carmpit-deep\u201d main flow, Taite said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere was a lot going on \u2013 wind, rain, white water. It was a very dynamic environment and quite a complex rescue.\u201d<\/p>\n
He was grateful for the \u201cexceptional\u201d work of Waiau\u2019s volunteer firefighters in supporting the rescue, said Taite, a firefighter based in Timaru, who was joined by SWRT colleagues from Christchurch.<\/p>\n
\u201cGood intel, good structure, good comms and that\u2019s how this process is supposed to work. We do nothing in isolation.\u201d<\/p>\n
A Hato Hone St John Ambulance spokesman said ambulance staff assessed one person at the scene who was in a minor condition and didn\u2019t need to go to hospital.<\/p>\n
The man had done the right thing in staying put until rescue in what was a \u201cvery serious situation\u201d, Taite said.<\/p>\n
But it was also a \u201creally good reminder to not drive through floodwater\u201d. <\/p>\n
\u201cYou just don\u2019t know the condition of the road under the water – the depth, what the water\u2019s going to do, whether you\u2019re going to get a log jam washout and all of a sudden get a metre wall of water hitting your vehicle as you\u2019re driving through it. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s just not worth it, stay out of floodwater.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The man\u2019s vehicle appeared to be caught on a stump, with the full force of the water pushing…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":513756,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[74,8126,23364,65271,2245,2079,24925,145084,3011,11551,78,296,1304,59919,111,43,139,529,69,814,196576,13913,11590,12633,12507,80308,19875,41304,8528],"class_list":["post-513755","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-after","tag-canterbury","tag-crews","tag-darkness","tag-early","tag-fire","tag-flood","tag-floodwaters","tag-four","tag-hours","tag-in","tag-into","tag-morning","tag-motorist","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-north","tag-nz","tag-property","tag-raging","tag-remote","tag-save","tag-spent","tag-stranded","tag-stricken","tag-swept","tag-torrent","tag-trapped"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/513755","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=513755"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/513755\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/513756"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=513755"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=513755"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=513755"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}