Woman winched after crashing off the Rimutaka Hill Road

Early this morning the Life Flight Trust rescued a woman who crashed off
the Rimutaka Hill Road on the Featherston side of the Summit.

The Westpac Rescue Helicopter was called to search for the woman after
her car was found about 40 metres down a cliff around midnight. The
helicopter team searched for nearly an hour but were unable to locate
the woman.

Just after 6am Life Flight was notified by police that a Land Search and
Rescue team had located the woman below the site where her car was
located.

The Westpac Rescue Helicopter responded with a winch trained Wellington
Free Ambulance Paramedic.

"Hats off to the Land Search and Rescue Team which found the woman" says
Life Flight Crewman Dave Greenberg. "Not only did they locate her, in
the dark, in difficult terrain but they even managed to cut down some
small trees around her to make the winch rescue a bit easier".

Remarkably the woman, who is in the 50's, had no apparent injuries other
than a bit of hypothermia.

She was transported to the Wellington Hospital Emergency Department
where she is being treated and assessed.
ends