Student plucked to safety

BY SALLY KIDSON

A freezing-cold Nelson College student suffering a severe asthma attack has been plucked from a remote gully in the Nelson Lakes National Park.

Sam Miller, 15, said he was on the second day of a five-day tramp when he started feeling short of breath about 3.30pm yesterday.

"It came on pretty quick."

Sam said it was the first asthma attack he had suffered in years and it was brought on by the cold. "It was freezing."

The party of 30 students, plus two teachers and a teacher aide, were walking from Nelson College's Matakitaki Lodge to St Arnaud and had spent Monday night sleeping out under tent flies in the snow.

Sam said he wanted to keep tramping, but his teacher had made the decision to set off an emergency beacon and call for a helicopter.

It was a "pretty scary" wait, he said, because all the while he struggled to breathe.

He was winched out of the bush near the head of Lake Rotoroa, from a valley of dense bush with a river.

Sam said the helicopter trip to hospital and being winched from the forest floor was awesome. He just wished he had been feeling better during the experience.

The dense bush and mature trees meant the winch lift into the helicopter was "pretty high".

Once he was in the helicopter he started feeling better quickly, and, after a short spell in hospital for observation, he was released last night.

While he was "gutted" at leaving behind his year 10 classmates and sad to be missing out on the tramp, he was pleased to be safe at home.

Sam had a difficult night last night, struggling with a few asthma attacks.

Sam's father, Dave Miller, said it would have been a long night in the bush for Sam and his teachers had he stayed and they had made the right call to set off the beacon.

Mr Miller said Sam was freezing when they saw him at the hospital and it took him a good while to warm up.

He was full of praise for Sam's teacher and the Summit Rescue Helicopter.

Pilot Tim Douglas-Clifford said the rescue was carried out in a steep gully with tall trees. The helicopter was unable to land in the rugged terrain.

The party was tramping the Mole Track heading to the D'Urville Hut, and was near the Bull River.

The rescue was carried out in low cloud and drizzle, and a fresh dump of snow surrounded the area.

"It was extremely cold down there."

Nelson College deputy principal Tim Tucker said the whole incident had been handled extremely well by experienced teachers Stu McDougall and Kirk Milligan.

Coincidentally, the school had already organised to hold a mufti day tomorrow to raise funds for the Summit Rescue Helicopter.

Mr Tucker said the helicopter had rescued Nelson College students in the past, and he expected it would rescue their boys in the future.

Mr Tucker said a teacher had set off a beacon that had been paid for by the PTA.

The school was alerted at 3pm that the beacon had gone off and it was a tense couple of hours waiting to find out from the helicopter what had happened and if everyone was OK.

"It's incredibly stressful," Mr Tucker said.

"We knew at three o'clock something was wrong, but we didn't know what."

Mr Tucker said the emergency had shown the school had good systems in place.

He was thrilled at how it had been handled.

He had not had a chance to talk to the staff on the tramp because they were out of cellphone range.

The hospital had been adamant the teacher had made the right decision to call for help.

"The people at the hospital said he needed to come out ... it's never an easy decision to push the button.

- © Fairfax NZ News