NMRH/stuff
The crew of the Nelson Marlborough Rescue Helicopter picked up an injured tramper in Speargrass Valley, Nelson Lakes National Park.
A tramper with a broken ankle was hoisted from a remote, snowy valley after firing a personal locating beacon.
Nelson Marlborough Rescue Helicopter (NMRH) pilot Brendan Hiatt said the crew responded to a personal locator beacon activation on Saturday.
The warning led them to a group of five trampers in the Speargrass Valley, about 3 miles from Speargrass Hut in remote Nelson Lakes National Park.
The helicopter was unable to land in the valley, so an NMRH medic treated the injured tramper before the tramper was taken to safety and flown to Nelson Hospital, Hiatt said.
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Later on Saturday, the NMRH crew picked up a man from a rural estate in Ngatimoti. The man was injured after his quad overturned.
The crew also picked up a man in Motueka who had undergone a medical event during a martial arts class, Hiatt said.
Meanwhile, animal-related reports kept police busy in Nelson-Tasman all weekend.
Police were alerted to a car-cow incident on Tākaka Hill Rd, on the Golden Bay side, around 7:50 p.m. Friday night. The car’s wing mirror had clipped the cow, a police spokesman said.
The driver was unharmed, but there was no word on the cow, they said.
Around the same time on Friday, police received reports of a seal on State Highway 6, near the NPD gas station in Hira, the spokesman said.
At 6:47 AM on Saturday morning, police were alerted to an adult seal and a dead baby seal on Wakapuaka Rd.
The baby seal has been taken in by a road worker and the adult seal has not been seen again, the spokesman said.