A 65-year-old man who fell several metres and badly knocked his head on Saturday night was airlifted out of the ranges above Lake Christabel at the headwaters of the Grey River on Sunday morning in a rescue operation lasting several hours.
The man was among a group from Canterbury who had set out on a tramp from Speargrass Flat, near the Maruia highway, to Lake Christabel on Saturday morning.
NZCC West Coast Rescue Helicopter base manager Angus Taylor said they were notified by the New Zealand Rescue Co-ordination Centre about 7am on Sunday
after a member of the tramping party set off a personal locator beacon.
The helicopter flew into the area about 7.45am but it took a long time to find them due to the dense beech forest, with trees up to 25m high, and the locator beacon signal bouncing off the rugged terrain.
The helicopter crew eventually spotted a blue tarpaulin the party was using for shelter through the thick forest cover.
"We finally found a group of six trampers above Lake Christabel in the bush up in the beech forest," Mr Taylor said.
The group had initially been following a track to the Lake Christabel Hut on Saturday but then cut across the tops to get to the lake, "off the marked track".
One man had fallen 3m towards the end of the day, and was badly concussed after banging his head on a rock.
"They'd spent the night in the bush. They did the right thing. They stayed together," Mr Taylor said.
Two of the trampers were able to walk out to Speargrass Flat. The other four, including the injured man, had to be winched out. The injured man was taken to hospital while the rest of the party were returned to Speargrass Flat.
Land search and rescue had been on standby but was stood down.
Mr Taylor said while the weather had been relatively fine, by the time the operation was nearing its end it was raining fairly heavily.
- Brendon McMahon of the Greymouth Star
