Couple Rescued From Ridgeline On Mount Holdsworth
Wairarapa Acting Sergeant Richard Butler:
After
several hours huddled in the cold, a couple has been rescued
off the
ridgeline on Mount Holdsworth.
A Land
Search and Rescue team located the pair late on Saturday,
around seven
hours after the initial alarm was
raised.
The couple had planned to walk from Holdsworth
Road to Atiwhakatu Hut and on
to Jumbo Hut for the
night.
However, one wrong turn took them up the East
Holdsworth Track and close to
the ridgeline.
After
realising their mistake the couple attempted to reroute to
Powell Hut,
but were met with extreme weather conditions
and were blown off their feet
several times.
At around 4:15pm they decided to hunker down and call Police.
A helicopter was considered, but high winds meant it could not be deployed.
A team of three
LandSAR members successfully located the pair at around
11pm,
and managed to get them to Powell Hut where they
spent the night before
safely escorting them down to the
road on Sunday morning.
The pair were fortunate to
have had cellphone coverage, but people should
never rely
on cellphones solely as their means of
communication.
A quality Personal Locator Beacon (PLB)
can be purchased for under $500 which
will last up to 10
years, that’s $50 a year to potentially save your
life,
alternatively you can hire them from various trusts
for the price of a box of
beer.
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.
Police encourage trampers to always be
prepared and take sufficient clothing
and equipment for
an unplanned overnight stay.
It’s highly likely the
couple would have become hypothermic overnight, had
they
not been located by LandSAR staff.
The 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
when
an alert comes in.
People heading into the mountains
should seek information from the Department
of
Conversation (DOC) visitor centres or via the DOC
website.
It can give you detailed information about
weather forecasts, track issues
and
conditions.