Kōrero: Search and rescue

Brian Pickering (right) saved the lives of a father and his 13-year-old son after they became stranded in the Kaimanawa Range in 2000. The pair had set off on a four-day tramp. They were caught in a storm and rapidly became hypothermic. Pickering, of the Rotorua search and rescue team, found them huddled on a ridge as he was returning from a tramp. He got the pair under bush cover and wrapped them and himself in sleeping bags and a tent, while keeping in cellphone contact with the police. Six search and rescue teams were sent in, the rescuers at times crawling on their hands and knees in gale-force winds and icy conditions. The three were found next morning, but because of the severe weather they could not be flown out by helicopter until the following day.