An elderly man lay collapsed in the doorway of his bedroom for three days after a fall left him unable to call for help or reach the comfort of his bed.
Dehydrated and suffering from immense pain the Great Barrier man in his 70s dragged himself from his kitchen to his bedroom where he was discovered on Saturday morning lying on the floor unable to move any further.
His home help had arrived to find all was not well and immediately raised the alarm.
He was flown to Auckland City Hospital in a moderate condition.
The pensioner was one of a dozen emergency callouts over the past weekend where the Auckland Westpac Rescue helicopter tended to the sick and injured.
Westpac Rescue Helicopter spokeswoman Kerrie Spicer said it was thanks to the housekeeper arriving on Saturday morning that he was found and help summonsed.
"He said he had been there for several days. He recalled falling on Wednesday evening. He slipped and fell and couldn't get up," she said.
After dragging himself through his home he had managed to get to the bedroom where he remained lying in the doorway for days with severe back pain.
Other missions involved finding an intoxicated rider who had come off his quad bike in the Port Waikato sand dunes and searching for a missing swimmer who was later mistaken for a rock.
A man in his 20s was taken to hospital in a serious condition after he came off his motorcycle and landed down a steep bank at a Kaukapakapa farm northwest of Auckland on Saturday afternoon.
This was followed by a second bike accident at Port Waikato early Sunday morning where another man in his 20s on a quad bike had come off in the sand dunes. The rider, who had allegedly taken the vehicle out in an intoxicated state, was found unconscious by the police Eagle helicopter. He was treated at the scene for minor injuries by rescue helicopter staff and taken home by ground crews.
On Saturday the crew flew to Waiheke Island to help a man in his 60s with a leg injury. Spicer said the injured man had slipped on gravel and was down a long driveway and in a gully.
That was followed soon after by a second mission to Great Barrier Island where the man in his 70s had fallen earlier in the week.
The final mission of the weekend ended on a note of confusion when the rescue helicopter was asked to look for a missing swimmer at Muriwai Beach yesterday afternoon. The search was soon called off after surf lifeguards said the man had been looking at a rock.
