Everyday heroes in our midst
Who doesn’t love a great rescue story? When the world seems filled with news of terror, hate and tragedy, a gripping tale with a happy ending is truly something to savour. When that story involves the foaming and freezing Southern Ocean, an isolated and windswept sub-Antarctic island, and the rescue of New Zealand rescuers, it becomes even more irresistible. Add in a laconic, veteran helicopter pilot and it becomes the stuff of legend. Someone, somewhere, possibly in Hollywood, must already be eyeing up the Auckland Islands rescue this week for the big screen.
The three crew of Southern Lakes Helicopters BK117 – pilot Andrew Hefford, winch operator Lester Stevens and paramedic
John Lambeth – were flying to Enderby Island, about 460 kilometres south of
Bluff, on Monday evening to pick up an injured trawlerman, when their helicopter crashed into the sea a couple of kilometres short of the island.
Battered and bruised in the dark and without food, matches or locator beacons – lost in the crash – the men fought through kelp to the shore and made it to a beach in Port Ross on Auckland Island.
It was there towards the middle of the day on Tuesday that Te Anau’s Sir Richard ‘‘Hannibal’’ Hayes, with 45 years’ flying experience, pilot Snow Mullally and water rescue jumper Chris Hughes spotted the missing men and rescued them, bringing them back to Invercargill.
Hayes’ search-and-rescue efforts have been recognised internationally. In the 2014 Queen’s Birthday honours he was promoted to Knight Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit. So
when someone as phlegmatic as Hayes calls the rescue the survival story of the decade, comparing it to winning Lotto and saying ‘‘we went there expecting the worst and came up with the best’’, you can be assured it really was something not far off miraculous.
For most of us with more humdrum lives, it is hard to imagine displaying the kind of courage people such as Hayes and his fellow rescuers frequently have to. Time and again these heroes in our midst embark on tremendously brave, deathdefying actions, yet take every opportunity to talk their efforts down.
Putting your life on the line for others is as aweinspiring to many New Zealanders as it is beyond their everyday experience. But when circumstances force us to act, be they from natural disasters or man-made atrocities, we can all be heroes.
The passing of another Anzac Day, with the falling leaves evoking our fallen soldiers, reminds us that humans are capable of achieving, and enduring, the extraordinary when things are out of our control. Those recognised as ‘‘heroes’’ during the two world wars and other conflicts New Zealanders were involved in have been decorated for their bravery. But they had many ordinary comrades who carried out heroic acts.
Similarly, when terrorism’s black shadow spread over Christchurch on March 15, mosque neighbours and passers-by did what they could to help shooting victims, disregarding their own safety. After all, who would look the other way?
Our communities are made stronger by the unselfish, self-effacing heroes in our midst. Their actions remind us what being human is all about.
When circumstances force us to act, be they natural disasters or man-made atrocities, we can all be heroes.