Melanie Helmet/delivered
Silver Stream flooded in North Taieri, just outside Dunedin, on Tuesday night – near where a vehicle was swept away.
Conditions were “extreme” and “troublesome” when rescue teams pulled a vehicle out of the water, with one person still inside.
The vehicle was swept away when the driver attempted to cross a ford at Silver Stream in northern Taieri, just outside Dunedin, on Tuesday evening.
Two people managed to escape, but a third person was killed. The body was found in the vehicle Wednesday morning, a police spokesman said.
Otago Regional Rescue Helicopter chief pilot Graeme Gale said the rescue team struggled with “extreme” conditions with high winds, low cloud and a significant amount of heavy rain.
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Emergency services were called to the scene and a helicopter was dispatched shortly after 9 p.m.
Gale said only the rear of the vehicle was out of the water when rescuers arrived.
One was winched to the vehicle, where they attached a rope for a tow truck to pull the vehicle out.
“It was an intense and difficult job,” said Gale.
The area of the ford the car entered could “become very dangerous very quickly,” he said.
Melanie Helm/Stuff
A bridge at Silver Stream near Silverstream Valley Rd, the only way to enter and exit Waiora Scout Camp near where the incident occurred. This photo was taken Wednesday morning.
Local Melanie Helm, who runs the nearby Waiora Scout Camp, had gone to look at the creek around 8:30 p.m., not long before the fatality.
“The water was flowing. You couldn’t see the sides [of the ford]’ said Helmer.
Helm said locals knew when it was too dangerous to cross the ford. She said there were multiple road closure signs.
Days earlier, Helm witnessed a “close call,” when a 4WD truck was nearly swept by the current on Saturday.
She was shocked to see the back of the truck start to sideways as it crossed the stream, but it made it across, she said.
METERVICE
This is the third dose of rain in the past 8 days for boggy parts of the North Island, and another one awaits in the wings, arriving late Thursday.
Helm had expected a group at the reconnaissance camp on Wednesday, but she doubted that would happen because the rain was still “raining with pouring rain”.
Gale said a “huge” number of people and multiple agencies were involved in the rescue attempt. Gale said it was a “difficult” job.
Officers were investigating the death on behalf of the coroner, a police spokesperson said.
Night of the River Rescues
Meanwhile, in Christchurch on Tuesday night, a person was rescued from a crashed car that was washing the flood-swollen Heathcote River.
Emergency services were called to Ashgrove Tce in Somerfield just before 8pm. One person in the vehicle has been rescued, police said.
The person was in St. John’s care last night. The vehicle was still in the river Wednesday morning.
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In North Canterbury, a driver was rescued after their vehicle got stuck in the riverbed of the Okuku River at Birch Hill Rd.
Police said a rescue helicopter had been dispatched to pick them up shortly before 9pm.