Cyclone Gabrielle: Tūtira man ‘dug for four hours’ to free partner after slip crashed through family’s home

A Tūtira man dug for several hours in the dark through up to four metres of mud in an unsuccessful attempt to save his partner after a slip crashed through their home early on Tuesday morning.

Shona Wilson, a mother of three teenagers, was killed.

Wilson’s partner, Bill Chrystal, and her daughter survived.

Chrystal told his son Kalin, who a fortnight ago helped raise $150,000 for charity in the Shear 4 A Cause in the South Island, that the slip crashed through a bedroom in the corner of the house on a Matahoura Rd lifestyle block, about 4am on Tuesday.

The house where Tūtira woman Shona Wilson died in a slip. Photo / Supplied

Had the slip been a metre closer, all three would have likely perished, Kalin, who was flown into the area by helicopter along with his uncle Farrell Chrystal.

It is understood Bill Chrystal had continued digging for at least four hours. He was able to alert others in the area, and help arrived later in the day, Kalin said.

The couple had been together about nine years.

Wilson became the first confirmed fatality in Hawke’s Bay, with the tragedy having initially been referred to as being in the area of Putorino, a State Highway 2 settlement halfway between Napier and Wairoa.

”I wouldn’t have thought in a million years a slip would have come down that hill like that,” Kalin said. “It’s not a big hill.”

Almost next door were grandparents Barney and Gaynor Chrystal, survivors of the March 1988 Cyclone Bola and who this time escaped harm in their home, but saw possibly 50 per cent of their farm disappear.

According to Kalin, both dad and grandad told him that even though Tūtira was devastated in Cyclone Bola, with some scarring of the hillsides in the area still visible 35 years later, Cyclone Gabrielle was “ten times worse”.

While his partner was flown out after search-and-rescue teams had arrived, and while mainly cut off from the outside world, Bill Chrystal and his partner’s daughter had stayed behind to “try to clean things up”, as did Barney and Gaynor, Kalin said.

Kalin said he expected the Napier-Wairoa road (SH2) wouldn’t be reopened “for months”, with bridges and the notorious section of road known as Devil’s Elbow “gone.”