Senior Sergeant Andrew Knox from Hawke’s Bay Police 
SAR:

Huddled under a survival blanket for over 48-hours, a hunter was winched to 
safety after becoming lost in the Kaweka Range, near Comets Hut over the 
weekend.

Hawke’s Bay Land Search and Rescue team were alerted to the lost hunter at 
around 7:30am on Saturday.

The hunter had contacted a friend on Thursday evening, and advised he was in 
trouble and going to make his way down a river to get his bearings.

Unfortunately, Police did not have the last known point for the hunter, which 
made it difficult to establish a search area and possible direction of 
travel.

An Incident Management Team was established and ran out of Hawke’s Bay 
Coastguard in Napier.

Our LandSAR partners were contacted and deployed into the area, along with 
Police SAR, to start searching, with assistance from the Incident Management 
Team.

Through information gathered in interviews we were able to narrow down the 
search area considerably.

The hunter was located at around 9pm on Saturday by one of the search teams.

He had made a small camp by a river, and was found beside a lit fire, huddled 
under a survival blanket – where he’d been for over 48 hours.

He was tired and bruised, but otherwise in good health and happy he had been 
found.

The rescue helicopter winched the hunter, along with the search team, out of 
the area.

This was an excellent outcome and the hunter was very fortunate, considering 
the time he had spent in the bush, with very little supplies.

A number of partner agencies were involved in this rescue, including around 
20 LandSAR staff, the Lowe Walker Rescue helicopter, a civilian search dog 
team from Taupo, local AREC radio operators, Whanganui Police SAR, and a 
civilian helicopter operator from Whanganui.

The search would not have been possible and would not have had the successful 
outcome it did without these partnerships.

Police would encourage hunters to always be prepared and take sufficient 
clothing and equipment for an unplanned overnight stay.

Police would also advise all hunters and outdoor users to take a Personal 
Locator Beacon (PLB) with them on all hunting and tramping trips.

A distress beacon lets you instantly signal for help and they work almost 
anywhere in the world. The beacon shows rescuers your approximate location, 
taking the ‘search’ out of search and rescue. The sooner rescuers can 
help you, the more likely you are to survive.

Rescue Coordination Centre New Zealand works 24/7, 365 days of the year 
responding to all distress beacon activations. The team acts quickly to find 
out as many details as they can about who set off the distress beacon and 
promptly send search and rescue teams to assist.

For more information on how to stay safe when hunting visit: 
https://www.police.govt.nz/advice-services/firearms-and-safety/firearms-safety/hunter-safety 
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