{"id":514402,"date":"2026-07-07T16:55:18","date_gmt":"2026-07-07T16:55:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/514402\/"},"modified":"2026-07-07T16:55:18","modified_gmt":"2026-07-07T16:55:18","slug":"firies-use-digger-life-raft-to-rescue-driver-trapped-by-floodwaters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/514402\/","title":{"rendered":"Firies use digger, life-raft to rescue driver trapped by floodwaters"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.rnz.co.nz\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">By Katie Todd of RNZ<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Firefighters who rescued a driver trapped in floodwaters in North Canterbury early this morning had to use a digger and a life-raft to reach him.<\/p>\n<p>Waiau Volunteer Fire Brigade chief fire officer Robbie Roborgh said it took almost four hours working in the dark in rising water to bring the man to safety.<\/p>\n<p>He said the man became trapped in his car after driving over a bridge on a private road near Waiau, near the Mason River, at 3am.<\/p>\n<p>The first firefighters who arrived sought help from Fire and Emergency&#8217;s swift water rescue team because they could not get across the bridge, Roborgh said.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;When we got there the water was rising and lapping just under the bridge. With a rescue like that you can&#8217;t rush in,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p>Roborgh said crews were able to reach the other side of the bridge and rescue the man using the team&#8217;s life-raft anchored to a digger.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It was a great result when he was back over on our side and got checked over and he was okay,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p>Roburgh is urging people to stay off the roads unless it is absolutely necessary.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I wouldn&#8217;t like to have to go and attend another call like that,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Katie Todd of RNZ Firefighters who rescued a driver trapped in floodwaters in North Canterbury early this&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":514403,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-514402","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/514402","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=514402"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/514402\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/514403"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=514402"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=514402"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=514402"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}