Saving one life, changes many
There are tens of thousands of people living ordinary lives - sitting at breakfast tables, heading to work, or dropping kids at school - who share one extraordinary thing in common: they’re alive, either directly or indirectly, because of the work we do.
Half a century of rescues, searches and medical responses have brought people home and had an impact on entire whānau across the country.
Each rescue is different, every story unique. They might have been pulled from the water on a stormy night, uplifted from wave-battered rocks, or plucked from rapids when a rafting trip went wrong. As we celebrate those 50 years, we look back at the rescues that mattered.
The Rena rescue
Early in the morning of 5 October 2011, the cargo vessel Rena struck Astrolabe Reef 12 nautical miles off Tauranga and grounded. The 236-metre Liberian-flagged vessel was on route from Napier to Tauranga, travelling at around 21 knots when it struck, with 24 crew on board.
Notably, one of the first people on scene was a Tauranga Coastguard volunteer. He received an early morning call from a fisherman saying there was a ship on the reef. That quick-thinking volunteer immediately launched to get out there, spearheading the eventual successful rescue of the entire crew.
It was front page news of course, but not all taskings are as large scale.
Lucky cat owners
Thelma Wilson, Skipper of Kawau Rescue remembers a nasty winter’s day “blowing dogs off chains” from the northwest, when a 34ft catamaran flipped in a sudden squall. Fortunately for them, a walker at Tawharanui saw it all happen and dialled it in, so within 12 minutes Thelma and her crew were on their way, eventually finding the upturned boat with two very wet and frightened people in a dinghy floating off towards Coromandel at speed.
Wilson found the male who was fine, but the woman was in shock and needed urgent attention.
"She’d been inside when it capsized and had to fight her way out through a flooded cabin. Once onboard we quickly attended to the couple and then made fastest possible speed to a waiting ambulance at Sandspit,” says Wilson.
Had it not been for that lone beach walker witnessing the event on a windy day, things might have been quite different.
The most important rescue in NZ’s history
Campbell Hope is one of those men who was there at the very beginning.
Ironically, for perhaps the most important rescue in New Zealand history, Coastguard was not there at all - but only because it didn’t yet exist. However, the sinking of the Wahine after it hit Barrett Reef on April 10, 1968, during a fierce storm, resulted in the loss of 53 lives and led directly to the formation of Wellington’s Volunteer Coastguard.
It soon became apparent that an organised search and rescue service was needed, not just in the capital but throughout the entire country.
Campbell’s stories are legend and capture the essence of a long life spent as a Coastguard skipper, from picking up bodies after a plane crash, to overseeing Auckland harbour swimming events, to rescuing an entire family who were clinging to an upturned boat in atrocious seas near Ponui Island. The key thing was, he said, they were multi- agency events where several rescue services worked seamlessly together to get the job done – multiple Coastguard crews, radio ops, working with police, ambulance staff, Westpac helicopters and more, showcasing the vital teamwork involved.
Changing lives
What is abundantly clear, is that Coastguard changes the lives of those who are rescued, but also those lives of tens of thousands of others too, people who might not have their parents, or their brother or sister, Aunt or Uncle sitting round the table. Everyone is impacted in some way, not least of all our volunteer rescue crews.
As Thelma says: “You pull someone from the water who might be a few minutes shy of going under one last time, or turning hyperthermic and being a lot worse off, and you realise why your job is so incredibly important.”
At the end of the day, we couldn’t put it any better.
