Man badly hurt in crevasse

Press, 9 March 1978, Page 1

Man badly hurt in crevasse

A man who is believed to have suffered serious spinal injuries when he fell about 25 metres down a crevasse in the Mount Cook area was rescued just after 6 p.m. yesterday. The man, who had been on a course being ntn at Mount Cook, had fallen about 25 metres into a crevasse on the Hochstetter Dome and was lying on a snow ridge when a rescue team reached him. Strong north-westerly winds in the area forced the R.N.Z.A.F. rescue helicopter to land about half an hour’s climbing away from the accident scene and a doctor with the original party and two Mount Cook National Park headquarters staff went on foot to the crevasse. The doctor and the two park men, Carl Thompson and Wilfred Lammerick, lowered themselves by rope down the crevasse, secured the man into a special stretcher, and winched him up by hand. The man, whose name is not availble, was then winched into the helicopter, which was able to get in to pick him up, and taken to the Timaru Hospital.