[ad_1]
Supplied
A man is seriously injured after a collision between a jet boat and a kayaker on Wednesday morning (file photo).
The Department of Conservation (DOC) is investigating after an accident between a motorboat and a paddler on the Whanganui River left a man seriously injured.
Police confirmed the person was injured when a jet boat and a kayak or canoe collided in a remote part of the river Wednesday morning.
A spokesman for St John said the ambulance received a call around 10.20 a.m. M.
The Taranaki Community Rescue helicopter was flown to the Pipiriki Wharf landing, some 80 km upstream from Whanganui. The man was then airlifted to the Whanganui base hospital in serious condition.
DOC Central North Island COO Damian Coutts said the DOC is now investigating.
Two DOC staff members were on their way from Pipiriki to Mangapurua Landing when the incident occurred just north of the Puraroto Caves, Coutts said.
“We cannot speculate on the cause of the accident while the investigation is ongoing,” he said.
“The accident will be subject to a DOC investigation, and the incident will be reported to the New Zealand Police and the Maritime Safety Authority.
“We have been in contact with the family of the injured man. Our thoughts are with him and his family at this difficult time.”
It is not yet clear whether the man was in a kayak or in a canoe.
A woman, who declined to be identified, who was also kayaking on the Whanganui River, said she had met the man at the Ngaporo DOC hut in the days before the accident.
He told her that he had walked 1000 km and that he planned to take to the rest of the country, he said.
The woman came across a jet boat and a canoe moored at the Pipiriki pier, with three police officers standing nearby, yesterday afternoon.
“We think in the middle of nowhere, really? What happened?”
She believed the man had suffered serious injuries and called the incident “gruesome.”
