Arborist to the rescue of paraglider
An arborist who helped get a friend’s paraglider out of a tree earlier this year thought he was in for a repeat when he spotted a white parachute in the hills.
Nelson arborist Andy Creak was carrying out equipment maintenance on Sunday when he spotted the parachute in the treeline above Stoke. Creak’s first thought was whether he’d have to bail his mate out again.
‘‘I was going to ring him up and say ‘what have you done now?’ but when I got hold him, he said ‘no, not me this time’.’’
Instead, Creak was put in touch with emergency services who were attending to a paraglider stuck 18 metres up a tree on a Marsden Valley hillside.
Creak has eight years’ experience as an arborist in New Zealand and his native Britain. While sometimes called upon to retrieve
drones stuck in trees, the two paragliding events within a threemonth period were a first.
Creak’s friend crash-landed into trees at the top of the Barnicoat Range in January, before being taken to hospital.
While that paraglider was able to extract himself from the tree, Creak scaled it to retrieve the paragliding kit left behind.
In the most recent incident, the man spent around two hours in the tree. Creak used spikes to climb up to reach the paraglider, cutting branches to create a clear space before lowering the man down to Fire and Emergency crews at the bottom.
The tree was about 30 metres down a steep slope off Glider Rd, which made for a delicate process in bringing the paraglider down. Creak said the man was uninjured and in good spirits and was grateful for the rescuers’ efforts.