Docworkers survive 100m ravine plunge
ENGULFED by water after her vehicle tumbled more than 100 metres down a near-vertical ravine into a stream, Stella Mcqueen’s companion shoved a rock under her battered head to stop her drowning.
‘‘I remember coming down the the hill tumbling, the glass in the windscreen began to break,’’ Ms Mcqueen said from her Wanganui Hospital bed. ‘‘It was pretty surreal, I was just aware we were rolling. I felt calm.’’
Rescuers say the 32-year-old and her passenger, Natasha Petrove, 26 – both freshwater fish Conservation Department rangers from Palmerston North – are ‘‘extremely lucky’’ to be alive after their ute left the road and rolled down the cliff on Friday morning.
The women’s vehicle had stopped for an oncoming car on the narrow, gravel Rautiti Rd near Raetihi.
‘‘We came to a virtual stop,’’ Ms Mcqueen said. ‘‘The edge of the road was giving way.
‘‘I was probably a bit too close. I thought we were going to stop – there’s that sweet point where you think you’re going to stop – but it just kept going.’’
She couldn’t remember being trapped at the bottom of the ravine but said Ms Petrove put a rock under her head to keep her from drowning as she became engulfed by water.
Her black eye is swollen shut – she thinks the shiner may have happened when the women ‘‘beaned’’ each other, knocking heads as they pitched down the bank.
Constable Bruce Francis said the women ‘‘basically got too close to the edge . . . and in slow motion they slipped off the road and rolled multiple times.’’
The ute came to a rest on its side in the shallow part of a stream.
Mr Francis praised two men who climbed down the steep ravine with a makeshift rope and helped rescue the women before emergency crews arrived. When they got to the car, Ms Mcqueen was struggling to keep her head above the water.
‘‘She was partially submerged and they had to work to free her,’’ Mr Francis said. ‘‘If it had not been for those two guys getting down there as quickly as they did, she might have drowned.’’
One of the men who came to the pair’s rescue was the driver of the oncoming car. ‘‘He was really good. He knew what to do and kept calm,’’ Ms Mcqueen said.
It took more than three hours to rescue the women, who were eventually winched to safety by helicopter.
Ms Mcqueen was concussed and has bruising around her face, while Ms Petrove suffered bruises and cuts. ‘‘I would have to say they are extremely lucky to walk away with minor injuries,’’ Mr Francis said.