The woman's car plunged down a bank off State Highway 5. Photo / Greenlea Rescue Helicopter
The woman's car plunged down a bank off State Highway 5. Photo / Greenlea Rescue Helicopter
A woman's car rolled off State Highway 5 down a "near-vertical" bank - but somehow stopped instead of plunging 60m into the Waipunga gorge.
Passing motorists saw her car go off the road at the Waipunga passing lanes, around 50km out of Taupo toward Napier, this afternoon.
With no cellphone reception in the gorge, they scrambled around 10m down the "treacherous" bank themselves to check on her. They then climbed back up and drove to find a phone signal and raise the alarm, rescuers say.
The fire service was called at 3.25pm, Central fire communications shift manager Mike Wanoa said.
The woman, the sole occupant of the car, was trapped when fire crews arrived at the scene, Wanoa said.
The firefighters set up belay lines to get down to the woman. They managed to free her but could not bring her safely back to road level themselves.
The Greenlea Rescue Helicopter was dispatched from Taupo and arrived just on dusk, with two crewmen and a paramedic on board. The woman's car "somehow came to rest on a near vertical bank", a helicopter spokeswoman said.
The woman was winched aboard the rescue chopper after fire crews were unable to safely lift her to the road. Photo/Greenlea Rescue Helicopter
Chopper pilot Nat Every said the woman had been driving toward Taupo from Napier, on the opposite side of the road away from the edge.
From the roadside her car was not visible at all - which made it extremely lucky someone saw the accident.
"Those motorists made a reasonably stellar effort of going down that bank, which quite frankly was exceptionally steep and treacherous, and then climbed back up to raise the alarm," Every said.
The paramedic was belayed with the stretcher down to the woman and secured her before she was lifted in a night hoist.
The woman, thought to be around 20, was flown to Rotorua Hospital with chest and back injuries.
The fire service's high-angle rope rescue teams also responded from Napier and Hastings.
Police were called to the crash at 3.40pm, a police spokeswoman said. Poor reception in the area had hampered communication.
