Dead skier’s name not yet released

Press, 12 August 1978, Page 6

Dead skier’s name not yet released

The name of the Australian man who was killed after freak winds blew his car down a 250 m bank from the Mount Hutt access road on Thursday has not yet been released although his body has been identified. An Australian woman in the car was admitted to Christchurch Hospital with a broken femur. Her name is also not available. The third person in the car, Brian Anthony Lynch, an Australian ski instructor who was working at Mount Hutt, was admitted to Ashburton Hospital with bruising, shock and exposure. Senior-Sergeant W. J. Porter said that the names would not be released until the Australian Consulate had notified the dead man’s next-of-kin. It was learned yesterday that three vehicles

were blown from the road about 2 p.m. on Thursday by freak winds and driving rain. The first was a camper van containing five people which was spun around by the wind and the roof tom off. It landed further down the toad. Another camper van with three people inside went 100 m down a snowfilled gully where it came to rest. Nobody in either van was injured. The third vehicle, like the other two, was a rental car. It was blown down the mountainside at the saddle and crashed to the bottom of the gully. When a search and rescue party reached the car they found the man lying beside the car had died. It was suspected he had spinal injuries and was suffering from exposure.

Fifty-one search and rescue men, divided into seven teams, were involved in the recovery of the body and the injured women. There were also four ski patrol members, six policemen, and six civilians. Nine men were withdrawn from the search after showing signs of exposure. The chairman of Mount Hutt company (Mr P. Yeoman) was "entirely happy” with the way his staff handled the situation, according to a report from Ashburton. “I am satisfied the staff acted correctly in analysis, in closing the mountain and ip getting people off the mountain,” Mr Yeoman said. “Staff are all trained in wind assessing, and there was just no indication that the westerly would come up as it did.”