Photo: Nelson Marlborough Rescue Helicopter Trust.

Double mission day for rescue helicopter

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The Nelson Marlborough Rescue Helicopter Trust had a busy day with crew responding to two missions yesterday.

The rescue helicopter travelled out to Kenepuru Sound and then Buller to rescue and transport two individuals to Nelson Hospital.

Duty Pilot Tim Douglas-Clifford says the crew went over to Kenepuru Sound at about 8.30am and picked up a guy in what turned out to be a pretty straight forward mission.

“He was just above Anakiwa and had gone out for a morning walk when he had a medical event.”

The Nelson Marlborough Rescue Helicopter took the male who was described as being in his 70s to Nelson hospital then were called out to pick up an injured walker on the Ghost Trail at 2.50pm.

“The second one was a beacon so we didn’t know what we were going to.”

Tim says a man in his late 60s/early 70s from Levin was on one of the tracks in the Stern Valley with a group from the North Island when he sustained an injury.

“He was incapacitated so we had to extract them and take him to the Nelson Hospital.

 

“The people involved in both incidents did everything right, it was awesome, it makes out job a lot more straight forward.”

And that is something that Tim says will be very helpful with the busy season approaching hard and fast.

“We average about 500 missions a year and it starts ramping up from here so we’ll probably start doing two or three and it’ll climb even more as summer comes along and more people come into the region.”