Rafters: Injuries and 'unplanned exits' to be expected

White water rafting can be a dangerous pursuit. Photo / Stuart Munro

A white-water rafting guide airlifted to hospital after his inflatable craft flipped on the Rangitikei River east of Taihape is back at his adventure tourism lodge, nursing broken ribs.

The Palmerston North-based rescue helicopter flew the experienced guide, a United States national in his 30s, to Whanganui Hospital on Friday afternoon after the spill on a rapid near River Valley Lodge.

Lodge managing director Brian Megaw said the medical flight was simply to ensure the guide, one of eight on his payroll, had not suffered internal injuries after hitting a rock.

He returned to the lodge the same day, but was likely to be off work for a week or two, and was recovering in a spa pool when the Herald called.

"He cracked a couple of ribs - that's the whole story, beginning and end," Mr Megaw said.

Tourists among four or five others on the raft suffered "a couple of bumps, but nothing of any consequence."

The spill was on the last major rapid of a tough grade-five rafting section of the river, on which the lodge's website cautions would-be guests: "You may fall out - in fact 5 per cent of people have an unplanned exit from the raft."

Mr Megaw said the lodge was upfront about the challenges and risks.

"We can't have customers coming here who think they have zero chance of an involuntary exit from the raft," he said.

But customers received three safety briefings before setting off, and guiding standards had improved considerably in recent years, making injuries requiring hospital treatment rare.

"In years gone by we might have had one a year - now it's one every two or three years," he said.

"We raft about 4000 people a year and have very few injuries, but unfortunately he [the guide] landed on a rock."