Our Greymouth based crew have also had a busy start to the Winter season.

Over the Queens Birthday weekend the NZCC West Coast Rescue Crew conducted 4 missions. The air rescue service were needed at a MVA on Arnold Valley Road, two inter hospital transfers for patients suffering heart and chest pain, and an accident occurring at night that required the use of Night Vision Goggles and additional medical assistance.

The NZCC West Coast Rescue Crew recently had mission taking place at 1750hrs, transporting a patient suffering a fall related injury to Christchurch Hospital. Crewman, Tim Robbins said, “Fog was forecast to roll in around 2000hrs but as you can see it arrived quite a bit early. We managed to land at Hagley ahead of it, drop off our patient and depart again for the coast before it swallowed the city very soon after, causing major disruption to flights in and out of the airport.” Pilot, Stu Gorrie, and Intensive Paramedic, Hernan Holliday also assisted with this rescue and inter-hospital transfer from Westport to Christchurch.

Recent mission locations include; the Crow Hut on Arthurs Pass, Fox Glacier, Hari Hair and Westport. The crews longest missions this month both took 4.5 hours. One of these long missions involved tending to a hiker that suffered burns to their hand.

Night vision goggle use has been required 5 times already this month and the winch has also been used to rescue 2 hunters that activated their PLB.