Rescue helicopter airlifts people out of rough seas off Napier coast

A rescue helicopter at the scene of a rescue off the Napier coast. Photo / Doug Laing

Two people were early tonight still being assessed in hospital after a rescue in which two police officers leapt into heavy seas to reach a woman in distress on Napier’s Marine Parade beachfront.

The woman, one of two people reported in difficulty just before 2.30pm less than 200 metres from the beachfront viewing platform on the beach between the Soundshell and the Napier War Memorial Centre, was supported beyond the waves by two officers - one a trained lifeguard - while awaiting the arrival of the Lowe Corporation Hawke’s Bay Rescue Helicopter to lift the woman from the sea.

Another person had already made it to shore, police said, and Hato Hone St John Ambulance Service reported later that two people were taken to Hawke’s Bay Hospital in Hastings, one initially assessed in serious condition.

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Police used a flotation devices kept at the beach for use in such rescues, which have occurred numerously, over the years, some of the incidents starting in the face of warnings about the dangers, people sometimes being snatched by what have been called “rogue” waves while walking at the water’s edge on Pacific Beach, which stretches from near the Port of Napier to near Awatoto.

One of those in the water was taken aboard Napier Port vessel Pania and transferred to Coastguard Hawke’s Bay rescue craft the Celia Knowles and another was also hoisted from the water by the helicopter and lifted to the beach.

All were recovered safely, police said.

Police had no information available about how the two people entered the water, whether one may have been attempting to save the other, or from where they had entered the water, but there appeared no suggestion that anyone had been on the viewing platform, according to onlookers.

The Napier City Council confirmed the platform had been closed to the public because of the heavy swells since Saturday, and other signage warning of the dangers of swimming or getting too close to the water’s edge were in place, in times of heavy swells and also taking into consideration the unstable footing in the pebbles and sand on the sloping beach.

Such signage had been first installed over 20 years ago after a spate of incidents, including several deaths, over several years, but the warnings and provision of rescue aids was bolstered after the death of a five-year-old towards the southern of the beach in December 2021.

Today’s incident happened on a fine and sunny but crisp afternoon, the rescue unfolding as 100 or more onlookers gathered on the foreshore, the incident being just a few hundred metres from the Napier CBD.

It was not clear who had raised the alarm, the Council confirming it was not staff at the nearby War Memorial Centre or the Ocean Spa recreational swimming centre, but when becoming aware Ocean Spa staff did take oxygen and a defibrillator down to the beach to assist Police.