Teachers Saskia Ualesi (front) and Jade Humphrey (right) with students Harrison Matthews, Sebastian Rollinson, Jules Delaere, Caitlin Grylls, Mollie Wilton and Baylee Hennell.
Teachers Saskia Ualesi (front) and Jade Humphrey (right) with students Harrison Matthews, Sebastian Rollinson, Jules Delaere, Caitlin Grylls, Mollie Wilton and Baylee Hennell.
Calm heads, quick thinking and resourcefulness have potentially saved the life of a tramper in the Karangahake Gorge.
The group from Te Puke High School, led by teachers Jade Humphrey and Saskia Ualesi, was on the first night of a Duke of Edinburgh Award adventure journey, staying at Dickey Flatnear Waikino.
“We were playing cards and were complaining about how boring it was and how long dinner was away and then we saw this boy who was 12 or 13 running down the campsite towards us,” said Jade.
The boy asked for help, saying his sister was having an allergic reaction up on the nearby track.
Grabbing the first aid kit, Saskia was the first to follow the boy.
“He was faster than me and I was trying to talk to him as I was sprinting. It sounded like it was anaphylactic shock, so I said ‘here’s the EpiPen, run it ahead to an adult,” she said.
The person having the reaction was an 18-year-old and by the time Saskia arrived her boyfriend had administered the EpiPen.
“She wasn’t able to breathe, she’d swollen up, had a rash and her vision had gone. She was quite distressed.”
Student Sebastian Rollinson made his way to the spot, about 600m from the camp, through a tunnel, followed by Harrison Matthews.
“There was this cave and you had to duck down to go through it, and use a torch,” said Harrison.
He and Sebastian made many trips to relay messages as the walkie-talkies they had would not work because of the mass of rock between them and there was no cellphone coverage.
“We couldn’t talk and couldn’t pass information to the other groups, so if we had to tell them something, we had to run back and by the time we got there there was other information that needed to be said,” said Sebastian.
Meanwhile, students Georgia Pipe, Mollie Wilton and Jules Delaere were sent in the opposite direction to find a cellphone signal to call the emergency services.
“We had no info about the girl and they were asking us ‘is she alive?’ and we had to say ‘we don’t know’,” said Mollie. “It was really hard to get the information they needed.
“We just said we don’t know how severe it is but, we do need help.”
Once they felt the patient could be moved she was helped through the tunnel.
“By that point it had been about 40 minutes so we tried to move her back towards the campsite,” said Saskia.
EpiPens for people with anaphylactic allergies. Photo / Dean Purcell
“Caitlin [Grylls] and Baylee [Hennell] came to join me. I supported her walking through the cave, Caitlin held the light and Baylee brought the other things.
“It was scary and very stressful,” said Baylee. “If we didn’t have the EpiPen it could have been a very different outcome.”
There was quite a bit of luck involved - it was lucky that the boy found a well-prepared group of people who had a good first aid kit, but it was also lucky the group was there in the first place. Initially, the group was going to head to the Tongariro Northern Circuit, but the weather forecast meant a change of plan.
Luck wasn’t on the students’ side, though, as once they returned to camp and had a discussion about events they discovered rats had got into their food supplies.
Hato Hone St John confirmed a call was received at 4.23pm on April 22 about an incident on Dickey Flat Rd, Waikino.
“We responded with one helicopter, one ambulance, and one operations manager. One patient in minor condition was assessed and treated at the scene,” a spokesperson confirmed.
