Tuesday, February 20, 2007
New Zealand Rafters Found
The 55-year old husband and 47-year old wife missing after a short river rafting run down the Mangakino Stream were found. Their intention was to float down few kilometers to a desingated meeting point just northwest of Taupo.
A helicopter search and rescue team went out that evening looking with night vision goggles after missing the rendezvous. After a long night, the rescuers called it quits and were determined to look again the next day using ground crews and kayakers.
The couple ran out of daylight on the first day and decided to camp that evening. The next morning, the two headed out but ran into problems on the river when their raft was punctured. At that point, they decided to pull over and continued hiking for help. Due to a lack of cell phone coverage, the couple was not able to contact anyone. They were found by a helicopter search during the day.
Two things that they did right: 1) did not try to raft in the dark and 2) let people know when they would be at the take-out. Because of this, they survived their ordeal as rescuers immediately went into alert when the couple did not show up at their designated take-out time. They also took precaution by not trying to navigate the river as darkness approached. Let's hope others learned from this couple's hardship on the river.
A helicopter search and rescue team went out that evening looking with night vision goggles after missing the rendezvous. After a long night, the rescuers called it quits and were determined to look again the next day using ground crews and kayakers.
The couple ran out of daylight on the first day and decided to camp that evening. The next morning, the two headed out but ran into problems on the river when their raft was punctured. At that point, they decided to pull over and continued hiking for help. Due to a lack of cell phone coverage, the couple was not able to contact anyone. They were found by a helicopter search during the day.
Two things that they did right: 1) did not try to raft in the dark and 2) let people know when they would be at the take-out. Because of this, they survived their ordeal as rescuers immediately went into alert when the couple did not show up at their designated take-out time. They also took precaution by not trying to navigate the river as darkness approached. Let's hope others learned from this couple's hardship on the river.
Labels: outdoors, paddling, rafting, recreation, rivers, trips
# posted by W.E.T. River Trips - raftWET.com @ 10:27 AM 
