'Mack Attack' ride leaves woman with broken spine

Cathy Cooke broke her back in an accident on the Bay of Islands tourist boat Mack Attack. She intends to walk away from her wheelchair. Photo / Michael Cunningham

Cathy Cooke rode horses and helped manage a farm before a trip on the Bay of Islands tourist boat Mack Attack broke her spine.

Now she's in a wheelchair, her legs painful and inert, two titanium rods and long screws protecting a shattered vertebrae.

After more than two months in the Otara spinal unit, learning how to live without full use of her legs, she returned home last week to her husband, Jon, on their 80ha dry stock block at Maungatapere.

The Mack Attack accident last year left her with at least 50 per cent impairment of her spinal column and only time will tell whether that will repair itself. Ms Cooke was not wearing a seatbelt when she was thrown from her seat and the accident is being investigated by Maritime New Zealand (MNZ).

Mack Attack director Richard Prentice said passenger seats on the vessel had been improved after another woman hurt her back on the boat about two years ago.

The catamaran, powered by two 660-horsepower turbocharged diesels, can carry up to 30 passengers at speeds up to 100km/h. Mr Prentice said 15,000 people made the trip annually and the multihull was designed to handle choppy conditions in the Bay, where it has operated for 15 years.

Mr Prentice said a sign on the boat told passengers to keep their seatbelts fastened.

He expressed sympathy for Ms Cooke being injured, but declined to comment on the case as it was under MNZ investigation.

Ms Cooke is determined to walk again.

Her thigh muscles still work and she is confident she will learn to move again even without control of her ankles and feet.

Her experience hasn't made her bitter about adventure tourism. As she says, activities such as skydiving, paragliding and white water rafting hold risks, but they are also a lot of fun.

What she is angry about is the maintenance of safety standards in these activities.

Ms Cooke boarded the Mack Attack on December 21, 2010 with her granddaughter, Scarlett, and a young cousin, both 14. The boat had left Paihia when they bought tickets, but it returned to pick them up and left in a hurry.

The trio were sitting in the front of the open craft. Ms Cooke did not fasten the belt on her seat and said she was not directed to do so. Big swells near the harbour entrance lifted her up and she was injured when she fell back down, ending up on the deck.

"It was the weirdest thing. There was no pain initially, but I couldn't feel my legs."

Pain soon kicked in and Ms Cooke couldn't lie down as the Mack Attack returned to Waitangi, where she was put into an ambulance and then into a helicopter and taken to Whangarei Hospital.

Soon after beginning its inquiries, MNZ found the Mack Attack did not comply with safe ship management requirements and a prohibition notice issued on January 12 ordered it off the water.

The Mack Attack is back on the water and MNZ is looking into separate incidents involving the Excitor III, on January 12 and March 22, in which passengers received serious back injuries.