A quick-thinking woman and her two teenagers have saved the life of an elderly man who collapsed while bushwalking in New Zealand, after professional rescuers were unable to reach him.
The 80-year-old man had been walking the Kauaeranga Kauri Trail near Thames, on New Zealand’s North Island, on Sunday night when he became lost and collapsed after running out of water.
“He was only wearing shorts and a singlet and had no emergency supplies apart from his mobile phone,” Waikato West Area Commander Inspector Mike Henwood said.
The 80-year-old man had been walking the Kauaeranga Kauri Trail near Thames, on New Zealand’s North Island.Credit: Christel Yardley/Stuff.co.nz
The man managed to call his son, who alerted police to his father’s predicament at about 10pm (8pm AEDT). Police were able to pinpoint the man’s location based on his phone, but a helicopter rescue team dispatched to retrieve him could not land in the area due to bad weather.
That was when search and rescue teams, working with the Department of Conservation, realised a family on a bushwalking holiday was staying in a hut about 100 metres away.
They got in touch with the mother and her two teenagers and asked the family to go to the man’s aid. Despite the poor conditions, the trio left the hut and located the man on the trail, forming a “human heat circle” to warm him up before helping him back to the hut to wait for rescuers.
A second helicopter was also unable to land, but the man, who was grateful to be alive, was safely retrieved at first light on Monday with the help of Land Search and Rescue teams.
Henwood said the man was extremely lucky.
