Tramper, 60, found in bush

With two twisted ankles, disoriented by a head injury and stuck in the middle of the Tararua Range for days, an Upper Hutt tramper’s prospects alone were not good.

Luckily for Warren Jones, a well-oiled machine made up of police, the air force and an army of volunteers swung into action and soon closed in on the 60-yearold’s location.

‘‘I just can’t thank them enough – those pilots, the helicopter teams,’’ he said.

Jones started a four-day tramp in the mountain range north of Wellington at Mt Holdsworth Rd end in Carterton on Thursday, January 31.

He was found by local helicopter-spotters using thermal imaging at 6.30am yesterday, and was transferred to Masterton Hospital for assessment.

Jones said he was amazed that the searcher found him in such rough terrain.

‘‘I could see them flying over Warren Jones, rescued tramper

me for two days. I tried to get their attention but I was a needle in a haystack – make that a needle in a thousand haystacks . . . They worked so hard.’’

Jones was due home on Sunday, but when he failed to return, he was reported missing to police on Tuesday morning.

‘‘I was meant to be out Sunday but the rain had come up so I hunkered down to wait . . . Come Monday, some time in the morning I slipped on a rock in the river and hurt my ankle pretty bad, then I fell back and got a fair knock on the head, too. I managed to get out of the river – then I stayed put.’’

Incident controller Senior Constable Pete Cunningham said a ground search of tracks and huts on Tuesday and Wednesday failed to find him. Fortunately, Jones had diligently left a trail on his first few nights by signing into hut logbooks as he passed through. With that information, searchers were able to narrow down his most likely location to three valleys.

‘‘I tried to get their attention but I was a needle in a haystack – make that a needle in a thousand haystacks.’’

The New Zealand Defence Force joined the search on Wednesday, using a Royal New Zealand Air Force NH90 helicopter. They were able to lift two four-member teams in.

Carterton pilot Jason Diedrichs of Amalgamated Helicopters suggested his team use thermal imaging technology to sweep the valleys where the missing man was likely to be.

Fellow pilot Jamie Hansen, using the naked eye, and searcher Jordan Munn armed with a thermal imaging camera both saw the man at almost exactly the same time from Diedrichs’ chopper.

‘‘I could hear the helicopter coming up the river this morning, first thing. It had been days I’d been in the bush,’’ Jones said.

‘‘It’s a terrible thing to just have to wait. Wait for someone you don’t know to save you.’’

He was sheltering under a rock shelf near the riverbed of the Waiohine River below Angle Knob. They loaded him on the aircraft and transported him to awaiting searchers at Hood.

Cunningham said they were elated when they heard the news.

‘‘We couldn’t believe it, because it was a long time for him to be out there. We started fearing the worst because we were not finding any clues. The base pretty much erupted [when] we heard he had been found.’’

Jones was hobbling on a makeshift walking stick and was being supported by rescuers as he disembarked the helicopter.

Though he was in good spirits, Jones told medical staff his head injury made him disoriented. The tramper woke up in the bush each morning wondering where he was and how he had got there.

Cunningham said Jones had done several things right. He had enough food, clothing and shelter and used the hut logbooks. But, he did not have an emergency locator beacon.