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Climbers were caught by a rockslide on rugged terrain Wednesday night and weather conditions hampered rescue efforts, but a break in the clouds early Thursday morning allowed a helicopter crew to lower a team rescue from an alpine cliff.
The Greymouth rescue helicopter then took the couple, a man and a woman in their 50s, to Greymouth Hospital.
The man had a badly broken arm in two places, a concussion and a badly injured leg.
The woman was relatively unharmed. She had tied the injured climber to the steep slope to prevent him from falling and sustaining further injuries.
Maritime New Zealand’s Rescue Coordination Center led the complicated rescue.
Search mission coordinator Neville Blakemore said the climbers activated the distress alert function of their InReach device at 5:30 p.m. Wednesday after the rockslide.
The rescue was completed at 8:50 a.m. Thursday when the climbers arrived at Greymouth Hospital, after being transferred by rescue helicopter.
Blakemore said that being able to activate the device could have saved the injured climber’s life.
The pair were well equipped for the terrain they traversed.
On Wednesday night, the coordination center requested a Helicopter Line helicopter to fly from Aoraki / Mt Cook with a Department of Conservation Alpine Cliff Rescue team on board.
They were unable to reach the site of the rockslide at 1800 meters altitude on Mount D’Archiac (50 km northeast of Aoraki / Mount Cook) due to dense clouds.
Instead, they sent the rescue team to Godley Hut to wait overnight, watch the weather, and stay in contact with the coordination center.
The center had helicopters with night flying equipment on standby in Christchurch and Greymouth.
Low clouds prevented the Christchurch helicopter from flying, but at 3 a.m. Thursday, during a cloud break in the mountains, the Greymouth rescue helicopter was able to fly to the scene and knock the rescue team off the alpine cliff.
The two climbers were flown to Greymouth Hospital at approximately 7:30 a.m.
