Photo recall: Doc helps rescuers at tunnel collapse

Three survivors being lifted by cradle from the underground exit. Photo / NZ Herald, Picture research / Emma Land

Four men died and seven were trapped for 80 hours when the Kaimai tunnel caved in

Dr Neil Algar clearly recalls the media frenzy outside the hospital doors when seven men trapped for 80 hours in the Kaimai Tunnel collapse were finally freed.

Two of the injured survivors were taken to Waikato Hospital and the other tunnellers were taken to the Matamata Pohlen hospital to be kept for observation overnight.

"In the morning I turned up to the hospital, where the press were waiting," Algar says.

"They said to me, 'We want to interview these guys but the hospital staff won't let us.

'They say the men don't want to be interviewed - could you organise it for us?"'

Nowadays, tunnels such as the Waterview Connection are bored with huge drills, and there are almost as many safety inspectors on the site as there are tunnellers.

But in 1970, it was a more dangerous business.

Algar tried to convince the battered men to tell their stories. "But they were just itching to get out and go home.

"I said to them, 'you're world news.' But they said, 'Nope, we want to get out of it'.

"I had to go back to the press and say, 'Sorry boys, you've got to go'."

A few days earlier, on February 24, 1970, Algar had answered an urgent late-afternoon call asking him to go to the Kaimai Tunnel development.

The western end had collapsed during construction, killing four men and trapping seven others.

Ambulances and helicopters were put on standby as rescuers worked for days to drill a bore down to the group of imprisoned men, dropping down a phone line to communicate with them.

Algar was then able to talk to Murray Hemopo, who was directing rescue operations from inside the tunnel, and who said one of the men had a broken leg.

"I sent down some inflatable splints to wrap around the man's leg and blow up so it would hold, and a syringe loaded with morphine.

"I told him to give the man a shot of morphine to settle him down.

"I think Murray was more perturbed about giving someone an injection for the first time than he was about being trapped."

It was late in the evening of February 27 when the men were finally hoisted up on wooden platforms.

As they emerged, they received an enthusiastic welcome from 100 workmates and relatives.

Algar says workers with shovels continued to dig through the debris. He and a dentist were asked to identify the bodies found under the rubble.

"We had funerals for them here in Matamata and I went to all the funerals."

Algar says construction on the tunnel resumed quickly but techniques were changed and from then on a tunnelling machine was used, multiplying the cost several times.

As soon as the tunnel was completed, Algar and his wife went through it. "Rob Muldoon was Prime Minister and he was there. It was a special trip."

The tunnel is now used only for freight.