Kingston’s Andie Lowry was not going to let a bung Achilles tendon, requiring a helivac, stop her from finishing the Godzone adventure race around the Wakatipu.
At 8pm on Wednesday, about 100m from the summit of the Afton Saddle during the final mountain bike section of the 410km race, disaster struck for Lowry, part of team T. F. Bundy.
Lowry (33) and her teammates Sue Tait (44), of Queenstown, who competed with her in last year’s Godzone event in the Tasman, and first-time competitors Dee Mckay (42), also of Queenstown, and Jan McFadzien (41), of Lumsden, were nearing the end of their epic adventure when Lowry badly injured her Achilles.
Lowry had sudden pain and could not put her foot down, Tait said.
"There was no way she could flatten her foot out to a 90deg angle to put it down."
Fortunately, it could not have happened to a better team — Tait is an intensive care paramedic, Lowry and McFadzien are both nurses and Mckay is a former paramedic.
The women decided to try to get their stricken friend to the summit and send an SOS message, carrying Lowry, her bike and her gear to the saddle.
"We only lifted her up to the pass and that’s only because we felt sorry for her because she was crawling on her bum trying to get up."
Unable to get a message to Godzone HQ at the summit to see what terrain was like on the other side, and too cold to stay put, they decided to implement Plan B — set off their emergency locator beacon and try to make it to a hut under their own steam.
"We put a semi-splint on her leg and she coasted down on this track just sitting on her bike [using] one leg."
Shortly after they reached the hut, a Search and Rescue team arrived to transport Lowry to Lakes District Hospital for treatment, but they were still determined to finish.
Tait said that before Lowry was flown out, "we told her that we’d meet her in Kingston".
"She was quite happy with that."
The team reunited at Kingston on Thursday morning for the final leg, a 47km kayak to the finish line at Frankton Beach. Lowry "hobbled" into the boat before the women set off and crossed the finish line just after 5.30pm on Thursday, after five days, 10 hours and 28 minutes of racing.
