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A young man's dream of working in New Zealand as a whitewater rafting guide has ended after he drowned when his raft flipped in rapids.
Tor Prestmo, 24, from Norway, died after the inflatable he was in overturned and tossed seven people into the Rangitikei River, northeast of
Wanganui, on Saturday.
The other rafters were flushed down the rapids and hauled to safety by crew from another raft.
But Mr Prestmo never emerged.
The 11 paying customers and four guides present desperately scoured the water but found no sign of him.
Searchers found his body wedged under a rock about a metre below the surface at 1.30pm yesterday.
Brian Megaw, managing director of the River Valley rafting company and the search controller, said Mr Prestmo had been working with his staff for three to four weeks.
"They feel pretty cut up, but we'll just have to deal with it. It's one of those things. It's like riding a horse or riding a bike - we will have to go back rafting tomorrow."
The raft, on a 12km trip, overturned on the remote Fulcrum Rapids, 3km from the journey's end.
Fulcrum is one of the two toughest rapids on the tour, rated at grade five of six categories.
Mr Megaw said the river had a flow of 35 cubic metres a second, well below the firm's cut-off point of 48.
He said Mr Prestmo was a passionate rafter and experienced guide. He had planned to work for the company as a guide this summer.
"He was a good young man ... very willing. He was going through a training stage with us and we were going to make a decision as to whether we would give him full-blown training and bring him up to New Zealand standard.
"We would have sat down and assessed him in the next two or three weeks and chances are we would have [employed him], the way he was going. He was on basically every trip that had space."
Rafting experience would not help a person survive if he became trapped, Mr Megaw said.
"You can be the fastest, best swimmer in the world but if you get entrapped - depending on the level of entrapment - there's very little you can do."
He said he would be in touch with Mr Prestmo's family to offer his condolences. It was the third death the firm had experienced. The others were two years ago and 20 years ago.
Wanganui Search and Rescue head Senior Sergeant Darcy Forrester said two teams had rafted into the Fulcrum Rapids area and other searchers had gone in on foot.
They attached lines to Mr Prestmo's body and set up a "pulley" system so it didn't get washed away.
Mr Forrester said the difficult and dangerous recovery of the body took two hours. Those involved had to be careful not to get trapped themselves and were "roped up" and connected to those on land before they entered the water.
"It was right in the middle of a rapid. Part of his body was wedged in there and he was stuck fairly sound."
Ruapehu police area commander Inspector Steve Mastrovich said he called Mr Prestmo's family as soon as his body was found.
