‘I knew I was in trouble’
Friedmann knew he was in trouble.
He’d stalked a deer through scraggy hill country inland from Kawhia Harbour, killed it and was cutting into the carcass on Saturday evening when he slipped and fell on to his knife.
It sank deep into his thigh.
‘‘I got up, pulled the knife out, and then I felt a really warm sensation going through my body which I thought [was] a bit weird and then I looked down and blood was just pouring out.’’
His thoughts raced to his wife, four children and survival.
Sitting at his Kawhia farmhouse yesterday, Friedmann, who did not want his last name used due to privacy reasons, says he is alive today thanks to his wife, Bear Grylls and his upbringing.
The 38-year-old says his wife pushed him to buy the emergency locator beacon that ultimately saved his skin. But his survival skills were textbook. ‘‘I just processed stuff in seconds, like the next steps,’’ he recalls. ‘‘I knew I was in trouble, I knew I was going to [activate] my locator beacon and I knew the best chances of me getting help is if I’m visible from the air.’’
Friedmann tied a tourniquet around his leg and went to a nearby riverbank that could be seen clearly from the air.
As he made his way up the river he lost ‘‘a heap of blood’’.
‘‘I got myself in a comfortable position because I was dizzy already and my heart was going 100 miles an hour and then I activated the beacon. I thought first things first, I need to stop the bleeding and calm the heart rate down.’’
Friedmann edged the lower half of his body into the water.
‘‘[I thought] if I cool down my leg, then the vein would hopefully cool down and shrink and the blood would start clotting.’’
Then the breathing exercises started. Friedmann worked out it would take two hours for emergency services to arrive, so in that time he used knowledge he’d learned growing up in the outdoors as well as tips from TV shows such as survival expert Bear Grylls.
‘‘I came up with my own little action plan.
‘‘So I looked through my pack and I took my strobe light out, activated that, had another torch, positioned that so when they came I just need to click it and it puts a beam up in the air.
‘‘I said to myself I can do seven minutes at a time so I basically set my alarm for seven minute [intervals] and put my phone in the bag because I knew I needed to stay clear in my head, focused.’’
Every seven minutes, while lying waist deep in the river, Friedmann would loosen up the tourniquet around his leg to release the blood build up, take one bite of his muesli bar and a sip of water.
He was on the verge of losing consciousness when he heard the whirr of the Waikato Westpac rescue helicopter about 10pm.
‘‘I can’t thank my rescuers enough,’’ Friedmann says. ‘‘They were amazing.’’
Moments before they arrived, Friedmann was rapidly losing hope and wrote a text to his wife.
‘‘The hardest part, and it’s the only part that I was really emotional, was when I basically created a text [saying] goodbye to my wife because I didn’t know if I would survive this.’’
There was no reception in the bush and she never received it. Instead, she was informed of the accident and found her husband at Waikato Hospital a bit the worse for wear, but on the mend.
Friedmann wouldn’t reveal what he said in the message, other than to say it was an emotional farewell.
He was released from hospital on Sunday morning, with doctors telling him that if the knife had gone just a centimetre further it would have cut a main artery, spelling certain death.
Friedmann is telling his tale of survival to encourage other hunters to take their safety seriously.
‘‘Personally, I think the most important thing to have is a beacon – accidents do happen. You’re not invincible."
Hunters needed to put the ‘‘she’ll be alright’’ Kiwi attitude aside.
‘‘She’ll actually not be okay,’’ Friedmann says. ‘‘Be prepared, your life is worth spending a few dollars protecting.’’