Watch: Straightforward tow turns into rescue of hypothermic fisherman

by Hawke's Bay App
Friday, Nov 26, 2021 7:10 PM

A standard call to tow a fishing boat quickly turned into a rescue of a hypothermic fisherman by Coastguard Hawke's Bay.

Coastguard Hawke's Bay skipper, Henry van Tuel said they received a "non-urgent" call at about 5.30pm yesterday to assist a 40-foot boat, with one person on board, that had run into a few problems.

"We were all sort of geared up to do a tow for the boat and all of a sudden you see this figure waving their hands frantically at the back of the boat and it completely changed what we were going to do."

"We had to be really careful because there were lines and ropes in the water but we managed to get a rope to him, pull him to the back of our boat and pull him on board."

Once on board, Henry says the man was mildly hypothermic and quite shaken. "We had to get him dried and into an exposure suit to try and warm him up which took quite a while."

The commercial fisherman told them his trawl wires had wrapped around a propeller and he had gone into the water to try and free it.

"He realised he couldn't get it free hence why he was just hanging onto the back of his boat when we came to get him."

After the rescue, they also had concerns about the boat. "The boat wasn't really secure at that stage so I had to put a couple of people on board to start up his engine, get his hydraulics working so we could drop his anchor and of course we had to recover our people and come back."

Henry says the fisherman went into the water shortly after making the radio call - up to 50 minutes before being rescued.

A St John Ambulance spokeswoman says one ambulance responded and treated the patient in a moderate condition. He was then taken to Hawke's Bay Hospital.
 
 
He says the rescue was "textbook" and they had the man on board within two to three minutes.
"I want to acknowledge the great teamwork from the crew from Hawke's Bay Coastguard, getting him on board in short order, dry and on the road to recovery. And then getting his boat secure. Rescue is about teamwork and that was on display last night." 
While it was good he contacted Coastguard, and had a radio to do so, Henry says it is important people, particularly those on their own, stay on the boat.
 
"The minute somebody is in the water the issues just escalate considerably. People just don't realise how the cold just sucks the heat out of your body and it's quite quick for you to find it difficult to do things.
 
"He was shivering a heck of a lot so he was clearly into the early stages of hypothermia so that reinforces he was in the water for quite some time."
 
While they regularly get called to two boats, rescuing people in the water is less common.
 
The important thing is communication other than that really people should stay on the boat or in the boat its much safer for you and we can get things sorted out much more easily.
we've had quite a few calls for assistance but everybody else stayed in the boat. a similar incident a couple of years ago.