Four off-duty paramedics were among the first to arrive on the scene of a tandem bicycle accident near Lake Hawea yesterday afternoon.
About 2.30pm, two tourists from Canada, a male and a female believed to be in their 50s, were travelling towards Makarora on a tandem bicycle on a downhill stretch of State Highway 6, about 13km north of the Lake Hawea township, when the small luggage trailer they were towing developed speed wobbles. The bike went out of control and crashed.
Several motorists stopped to help the pair, including two off-duty Wanaka St John paramedics returning from a fishing trip and two Canadian paramedics holidaying in New Zealand.
The Hawea Volunteer Fire Brigade, Wanaka St John and Wanaka police also attended.
Eb Wijkstra, of Invercargill, said the pair were lying on the road "groaning" in pain and appeared confused about what had happened and where they were.
"They didn't even know they were in New Zealand," he said.
The woman was flown to Dunedin Hospital in the Otago Regional Rescue Helicopter suffering head, shoulder, chest and leg injuries, while the man, who had head, chest and leg injuries, was taken to Wanaka by ambulance to be assessed before also being flown to Dunedin.
The woman was in a serious, but stable, condition in the high dependency unit and the man was being assessed in the emergency department last night.
