Tin led searchers to missing man

Press, 8 March 1982, Page 1

Tin led searchers to missing man

An empty baked beans tin found in dense bush country on Saturday led searchers, to a young Darfield man, nine days after he was last seen . on the Heaphy Track. The man,’Mr Thomas Jenkins, aged 23, was an inex-. perienced tramper. v - C He had only one full tin of ■ baked beans left when searchers found him curled up in his sleeping bag. In spite of his ordeal in rugged bush country 4km from the track, the only 1 illeffects Mr Jenkins suffered were a chafed back and blistered feet. An Iroquois helicopter was used to lift out Mr Jenkins to Karamea, where he was examined by a doctor and pronounced fit .and well. During the time he was lost, Mr Jenkins had built brush and fern bivouacs for shelter at night. Hopes had faded by Saturday of finding Mr Jenkins alive as full-scale searches, first mounted the previous Monday, when he: was re-, ported missing, had proved fruitless. . ■ Search parties, which in- • volved 36 men in the field as well as controllers and helicopters, concentrated on a set of footprints leading off the track just near the Blue Duck shelter. At-times Mr Jenkins's path was easily distinguishable, but other times it disappeared as it appeared

he had slipped down banks and scrambled up again beifore continuing his tramp towards the sea. ■. . The discovery of a beans tin lifted the hopes of searchers about 1 p.m. on Saturday and four hours later Mr Jenkins ' was discovered . in the rugged Big River Valley near Vesta Creek, and lifted out. ■ 7 . / Mr Jenkins said last evening that he had left his car at Karamea and had walked to the Collingwood end of the track but became lost on the return trip. He had had to ration his food which consisted of bananas, sardines, barley sugars, and tins of bakdd beans. His first thought was to back-track and attempt to find his way back to the Heaphy Track. When this was unsuccessful he decided to follow a creek to the sea. He found, this difficult going as the creek he was following, the Saxon River, ■ seemed to loop in all direc- . tions. Searchers said that where he was found was about • three days tramp through rough bush country from the sea, and was 36km from where he had been last seen at the Perry Saddle Hut on the previous Friday. Mr Jenkins’s father, Mr Harley Jenkins, a Darfield farmer, travelled last week to Karamea with friends and relations so that he could

keep up with the latest developments in the search. He was so relieved that his son had been rescued that he threw a party at the local hotel for the searchers. Mr Jenkins sen. was full of praise last evening for the searchers, and also friends and neighbours who had “chipped in” with help during the search. His wife, Mrs Peggie Jenkins, said she had had telephone calls from throughout New Zealand offering support during the family’s nineday ordeal.

“All our prayers and hopes were answered when our son was found,” she said. The head of the police section of the search, Sergeant R. T. Gutberlet, of the Greymouth police, commended the Karamea residents who took part in the search. They had followed barely distinguishable footprints for up to 16km before finding Mr Jenkins. The alarm was first raised for Mr Jenkins last week when he failed to arrive for work at Lincoln College.