"The impact with the water resulted in a serious back injury and friends and family assisted him to the side of the water hole. The helicopter winched a paramedic to a close proximity to the patient as there was a overhanging cliff face and waited for about half an hour for the patient to be stabilised and manoeuvred to a position where he and the paramedic could be winched into the helicopter."
Tauranga man Steven, who didn't want this last name used, had been hiking in the area when the man injured himself.
"We heard the boom. It sounded bad," he told the Bay of Plenty Times last night.
Steven said the injured man had climbed to the top of the falls to jump off, but landed in the water on his bottom rather than his feet.
He was pale and in a lot of pain and could not feel his feet by the time others at the falls pulled him from the water, he said.
About eight people formed a chain to carry the man on a board to the other side of the pool from where he was winched out.
