Slog in creek brings out hurt tramper

Press, Volume CXVI, Issue 34132, 20 April 1976, Page 1

Slog in creek brings out hurt tramper

(New Zealand Press Association) WELLINGTON, April 19. Searchers had a hack-breaking haul through a creek in the Tararua Range when they carried out an injured tramper today.

The injured tramper, Mr John Root, aged 27, of Benge Block, Upper Hutt, was admitted to Masterton Hospital tonight. His condition is described as satisfactory.

The man, who suffered a broken arm and leg and pelvic injuries in a 50-metre fall on Saturday, was found in country too rough for a helicopter rescue. Thirty rescuers, working in relays, made painstaking progress down the boulderstrewn Baldy Creek, a tributary of the Waingawa River, until they reached an area open enough to allow a Masterton-based helicopter to pick up the injured man. “The last 70 metres to the rock slide where the helicopter came in took 30 minutes to cover,” the search con-

troller, Sergeant B. C. Lahmert, said tonight. "The rock slide was only 20 minutes downstream from where he fell on Saturday, but it took us over two hours with the stretcher.” Masterton trampers, Forest Service men, and other trampers in the Mitre Flat hut assisted with the rescue. A second Tararua search was also successful today when a missing middle-aged Paraparaumu deerstalker. Mr Harry O'Reilly, was found at the mid-Otaki hut, which is some distance from the area searched when he was reported missing on Saturday. Confusion about Mr O’Reilly’s plans arose when his companions, Mr David Heckman and Mr Roy Jones, came out of the bush on Friday night and Saturday morning, respectively. The police had thought that Mr O’Reilly had also intended to come out on Friday night, but they later found that he planned to stay the night in a hut.