Paramedic Winched to Rescue

Tourist on Kapiti Island

December 24th 2009

By Alan Tristram

The Wellington-based Westpac Rescue Helicopter was called at 3:00pm today to Kapiti Island where a woman tramper had fallen and injured her ankle.

The helicopter crew, who included a Wellington Free Ambulance paramedic, discovered on arrival that the patient was 20 minutes walk up one of the tracks on the Island.

Because of her injuries, and the difficult location, she was unable to walk or be carried out to the helicopter.

So the Paramedic was winched down to the track where the patient — a 63-year-old tourist from Canada — and members of her tramping party were waiting for help.

After being assessed by the paramedic, the patient and paramedic were both winched into the helicopter.

The injured woman was then flown to the Wellington Hospital Emergency Department where she assessed and treated for her injuries.

STORY OF THE WEEK

Kāpiti Coast councillors have toured of one of Aotearoa's unique buildings, the heritage - listed Rotunda at the former Otaki Health Camp, the country’s first.

Jeremy Smith reports that the 105-year-old, eight-sided rotunda predates the Health Camp.

It wasn't actually built in Otaki, but was one of two built in Rotorua in 1915 as part of a military hospital, on the site of Rotorua’s present public hospital.

Later they were taken to Otaki for the opening of the health camp in 1931.

Full story in the main column (December 19).

100 Years Ago — and the Maori Long March begins

Māori politics was dominated by the influential MPs (and sometime Cabinet ministers) Māui Pōmare ( Waitara statue photo above) and Apirana Ngata.

The 1920's also saw the rise of Tahupōtiki Wiremu Rātana’s religious movement, and the emergence of Te Puea Hērangi in Waikato.

Ngata worked hard to foster Māori scholarship and education and preserve traditional arts and culture.

He convinced the government to establish a Board of Maori Ethnological Research (1923), a Maori Purposes Fund Control Board (1924) and a School of Maori Arts and Crafts in Rotorua (1927).

The Reform government also took the first, tentative steps towards settling longstanding Māori grievances.

Agreements with Te Arawa in 1922 and Ngāti Tūwharetoa in 1926 recognised their respective rights over the Rotorua lakes and Lake Taupō, and led to the establishment of trust boards with some government funding.

Commissions of inquiry which examined Ngāi Tahu grievances (1920–21) and the Waikato and Taranaki confiscations (1926–27) recommended that modest compensation be paid.

Kāpiti and Coast Independent

Kapiti Island Rescue

Paramedic Winched to Rescue

Tourist on Kapiti Island