A mountain biker had to be winched into the Nelson Marlborough Rescue Helicopter after injuring himself along the Old Ghost Road trail yesterday.
The 55-year-old male from Timaru supposedly retained a hip injury at around 11.30am whilst riding the trail with a group of other riders.
The Nelson Marlborough Rescue Helicopter duty pilot Barry McAuliffe says because the group had a GPS beacon, the crew were able to fly straight there and find them instantly.
“We got the call about 11.50pm after they activated the beacon, and we got there about 12.30pm, he was on a section of track which has a few switchbacks, between Ghost Lake Hut and Stern Valley.”
The man was flown to Nelson Hospital with a suspected hip injury, however, the hospital has not confirmed the man’s current condition.
Duty pilot Barry McAuliffe says that while Old Ghost Road is “pretty isolated”, the Nelson Marlborough Rescue Helicopter is not called to that area frequently.
“We did 530 missions last year, around 30 of them were mountain bikers and probably, about six or eight of those were on the Ghost Road.”
