Cold night in tree after a short sail in rental car

Press, 11 July 1983, Page 3

Cold night in tree after a short sail in rental car

Nelson reporter A Wellington man spent about six hours wedged in a poplar tree during the early hours of Sunday after the car he was driving slipped into the flooded Motueka River. Mr Kerry Perreau, aged 41, single, was rescued at 8.30 a.m. yesterday by jet boat after spending a cold and most comfortable night in a tree surrounded by raging flood-waters.

Mr Perreau was in remarkably good shape when brought to dry land at Pangatotara. He was quickly wrapped in thermal material and rushed to Motueka where he recovered quickly. His main concern when rescued was that he would not able to play squash yesterday morning. It was squash — specifically the Motueka Squash Club’s tournament — which lead to Mr Perreau’s predictament early yesterday morning. With two companions he came down to Nelson for the tournament and hired a rental car.

About 1.45 a.m., returning to his billet at Pangatotara in the Motueka Valley, Mr Perreau’s car was in the

middle of a line of cars which had just crossed the Alexander Bluffs bridge when he felt the road move away under the vehicle’s wheels. He said the flood-waters appeared to have eaten away at the shingle on the side of the road and his vehicle just moved off the ill-defined verge. Much of the low-lying land in this area had by this time been inundated by the quickly rising waters of the Motueka River. His vehicle “just floated off” and the other cars, heavier ones, drove on past.

He said he sat in the car for about 10 minutes until the water began to get too high, and for a time he sat on the roof. When he got the feeling that the vehicle was about to take off down stream he felt it was time to seek something safer. He could see some trees round which water was raging, about seven metres away, and he swam against the torrent to one of them.

“I was pretty lucky because this tree I ended up in broke the current. I got up the boughs and waited,” he said.

In the meantime the

Motueka Fire Brigade was at the scene within 20 minutes with its new $45,000 emergency vehicle. It was backed to about eight metres from Mr Perreau before it was felt the vehicle was about to become bogged or drop into a culvert, and the rescue attempt was abandoned. However, the fire brigade and Constable John Harrison, who accompanied them, remained at the scene and managed to keep in touch by voice with Mr Perreau. In Motueka, Sergeant Gordon Moore had at first considered using a helicopter for the resuce, but the height of the tree and the proximity of high-tension power lines decided him against it. Telephone calls were made to all known jet boat owners in the district, with disappointing results. Being the off-season, most had their boats stripped down to prepare for the next season.

About 7.30 a.m., Mr Nick Horgan and Mr Paul Hawkes set out with a jet boat and, with Constable Bob Young of Nelson with them, they had Mr Perreau in the boat within five minutes of launching.