By ELEANOR BLACK
An Auckland man, his 13-year-old son and the Rotorua tramper who saved their lives were last night huddled together in the freezing Kaimanawa Ranges.
All three are suffering from hypothermia after being caught in the freak storm that buffeted the North Island with heavy rain, high winds and snow.
Rescuers reached them yesterday morning, but high winds prevented a helicopter from taking John Painting, aged 42, his son Matt and Brian Pickering to safety.
Matt and the men are too weak to walk out.
Mr Pickering, who stumbled across the Paintings on Monday night, risked his life to save them.
"What Pickering did was one of the gutsiest things I have ever seen," said Senior Constable Cliff Jones of Turangi.
"He knew he was risking his life by staying with them."
Battling extreme conditions, a six-man search and rescue team reached the trampers about 9 am and set up a tent in the sheltered gully where they huddled.
Rescue coordinators said last night that the trio were warm and stable. Another attempt to lift them out will be made this morning.
The Paintings were caught in the spring storm, which cut power to 95,000 people in Hawkes Bay and Gisborne on Monday night and left as many as 1000 people in Auckland - most on the city fringe - still waiting for electricity last night.
The storm ripped roofs off houses and tore boats from their moorings.
In a dramatic sea rescue, three yachties returning from Tonga were winched to safety by a rescue helicopter after jumping from their dismasted yacht.
The Paintings were caught unprepared by the snow storm, caused by polar air colliding with moist air over the North Island.
Mr Pickering, a 52-year-old tramper with search and rescue experience, was himself struggling against the blizzard when he literally stumbled across John and Matt Painting lying on a ridge on the Umukarikari Track.
The temperature had dropped to about 7 below zero and the wind-chill factor was 15 to 20 degrees below zero. Winds were reaching 70 to 80 knots, and visibility was a mere 30m.
The Paintings had left that morning on a four-day tramp and were quickly soaked. They rapidly fell victim to hypothermia - an extreme loss of the body's core, or internal, temperature.
West Auckland GP Dr Lannes Johnson said anything below 37 degrees was hypothermia, which first showed in uncontrollable shivering, progressing to slow heart rate, laboured breathing, confusion and delirium before the body slipped into a coma.
Mr Pickering, nearing the end of the first day of his five-day tramp, found the Paintings about 7 pm confused and stuck on the exposed ridge about 1700m above sea level.
He wrapped them in sleeping bags and got them off the trail and into sheltered bush. Too tired to set up the tent, he simply covered them and himself with it.
Mr Pickering, who also developed hypothermia during the night, was in contact with Turangi police by cellphone until 3.45 am, when his battery failed.
"There was a point last night when we were saying good night to them and didn't know if we would hear from them again," said Senior Constable Jones. "It was gut-wrenching."
The Turangi policeman was also in constant radio contact with the first of six search and rescue teams sent in to find the trampers on Monday night.
He kept urging them forward because he knew the trampers' spirits would be raised by knowing help was on the way, an important element in their survival.
Despite driving snow which bit into their faces and the extreme cold, which left ice beards on their chins, the team kept struggling through the blizzard a good hour after they had exhausted themselves, said Senior Constable Jones.
For much of the three hours they spent on the ridge, they were reduced to crawling on hands and knees because the wind was so strong it knocked them off the trail. Every 100m took 20 minutes to cover.
"We were getting picked up by our feet getting thrown off the ridge into tussock grass," said rescuer Brendan Dobbyn. "We had trouble staying upright most of the time."
Another rescue party member, Kevin Singer, said: "We were worried we weren't going to get back either."
Mr Painting's wife, Karen, daughter Chrissie, 15, and brother Jeremy drove from the North Shore to the search HQ at first light yesterday, their vigil having begun at 11 pm when police contacted them.
Mr Pickering's wife, Jessica, was confident about the trampers' chances, knowing that her husband had knowledge gained from search and rescue operations near Rotorua.
"I felt because of his experience as a tramper and the sort of person that he is that he would be okay." She and daughter Helen, 17, slept next to the phone.
Yesterday afternoon about 1.30, Tranz Rail rescue helicopter pilot Shamus Howard returned to Turangi having failed to airlift the trampers to safety. He said the wind shear made the operation too dangerous but he expected to make another attempt early today.
The stormy weather is expected to ease across the North Island today, with Northland and Auckland becoming fine but showers lingering around the centre of the island.
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