Karen's Story - Ahuroa

Karen was enjoying a beautiful day out bushwalking with the Leigh Walking Group in picturesque Ahuroa on the day her rescue happened.

The group had been trekking for several hours and were preparing to find a spot for lunch. The track was steep in places, and members had been advised to bring poles and sturdy boots. As the group made their way down a gentle incline, a sudden and completely unseen hazard changed everything for Karen.

“I put my pole down, it hooked into the ground, and as I stepped forward, something just grabbed my foot. It turned out to be a supplejack vine. You couldn’t even see it. It must have been only a few inches high, like a pencil coming up from the ground,” Karen recalls.

Within a second, the vine caught her boot and twisted her ankle so severely that it dislocated and fractured in three places.

“It was excruciating. I just slid down onto the ground. I knew straight away I couldn’t carry on.”

Her fellow walkers called 111. Despite being deep in the bush, they were able to maintain enough phone signal to relay their location to the emergency dispatcher, who immediately tasked the Auckland Westpac Rescue Helicopter crew. They quickly established coordinates and in no time were in the air and on their way to the location.

Hidden under thick bush canopy, the group was initially impossible to spot from the air. At the pilot’s request, everyone rummaged through their packs for anything red to signal their position. Jackets, linings, clothes, anything red went into the air. It worked because the crew managed to locate them.

Moments later, the helicopter’s doctor and paramedic were winched down through the trees, appearing “as if from nowhere.”

With great care, after giving Karen a clinical assessment, they placed her into the winch harness, ready for a winch extraction. She was lifted only a short distance before being maneuvered onto the helicopter’s skids.

“It was surreal. The pull of the winch was intense, but then I opened my eyes and thought, ‘No, you need to see this.’ I’ll never forget that view,” Karen says.

The helicopter flew to a nearby farm to load her onto a stretcher, before transporting her to North Shore Hospital in a quick twelve-minute flight.

“They even asked if I wanted a window seat. I was propped up and could see all along the coast. Seconds later, I was in A&E.”

She remained in hospital for eight days and recently had her cast removed. Recovery is slow but steady, and she is determined to get back on her feet and eventually go back to walking with the group. “I’m not a patient patient,” she laughs, “but I’m trying.”

Karen says “We were blown away by the professionalism, the skill, and the kindness of the crew. I couldn’t believe the effort everyone put in and how quickly help arrived in a place that felt completely unreachable.”

The Leigh Walking Group were so impressed by the rescue, and so grateful that they set up a fundraising account and raised $970 for our rescue helicopter service, for which we can’t thank them enough. We wish Karen all the very best with her recovery and hope she’ll be out hiking again soon.

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