Award urged for courageous rescuer snubbed by ACC

Former Northland rescue helicopter volunteer Trevor Tuckey should be posthumously awarded a Queen's Service Medal for courage,  says Steve Simpson.
"He was the bravest man I have ever met," said Mr Simpson, a former Northland rescue helicopter crew member now flying North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (Nato) troops around Afghanistan.
Mr Tuckey, a volunteer crew member on the helicopter, died at his Whangarei home on October 1 from cancer. He was  61.
Mr Simpson was the co-pilot and winch operator on a Northland Emergency Services Trust helicopter  that rescued an American couple, Bruce and Marianne Burman, and their 13-year-old son, Heath, from their sinking 12m yacht Freya in 1998.
The Sikorsky S76 helicopter was piloted by Reg Ellwood, paramedic Tony Smith was on board and Mr Tuckey was on the winch hook.
A big storm had caught several American yachts making a dash for New Zealand from the Minerva Reefs and, when the helicopter  found the Freya about 100 nautical miles (185km) east of Cape Brett, it had rolled four times in the 12m waves and 70-knot (130km/h) winds.
Mr Tuckey, then aged 50, was lowered into the sea on the winch's 47mm-thick steel cable and the helicopter  tried to troll him across to the Freya. But he was knocked unconscious in a collision with the yacht. He was winched back to the helicopter,  dazed and  with blood coming from his mouth.
It was looking like the Burmans  might have  to be left to their fate. But Mr Tuckey rallied and insisted on another descent.
After two attempts, a heaving-in or hi-line was secured to the stripped deck of the yacht, Mr Tuckey was lowered again and managed to reach the Freya's bow.
Mr Simpson said a rogue wave about 25m high then lifted the yacht to its peak and flipped it.
"I could see the whole keel as the yacht fell out of the face of the wave and plunged into the trough," he said.
"I had my hand on the cable cutter as the helicopter was hooked to the yacht by the hi-line and it could have pulled us down."
But the Freya had then popped out of the water upright and Mr Tuckey - known for his large, strong hands - was still clinging to the bow. "He got to the Burmans, hooked the man and boy on to the winch line and we hauled them up," Mr Simpson said.
When Mr Tuckey and Mrs Burman were in the air on the next lift the hi-line had coiled around Mr Tuckey's wrist pulled taut as its end snagged on the yacht and the skin was peeled from his hand "like a glove".
Mr Simpson said he thought it had been the most difficult rescue of its kind ever accomplished in New Zealand.
"Trevor was so humble - he never told anyone what he did. And a really outrageous aspect of it all was that he was off work for a while with his injured hand and ACC wouldn't pay him for it because his rescue work was voluntary."
It is understood Mr Simpson and  members of police and volunteer search and rescue teams are taking steps to seek a bravery award for Mr Tuckey.