Man 'on his last breath' dragged from Manawatū River

Sunday, 18 September 2022

A man had to be dragged from the Manawatū River near the end of Maxwells Line in Palmerston North on Saturday. (File photo.)

A near drowning and river rescue has again highlighted the danger of a part of the Manawatū River in Palmerston North.

Stuff reported on Saturday how a dog was saved from an island in the river, near the end of Maxwells Line, after 10am.

But the dog only became stuck on the island as a result of another rescue upstream, where people formed a human chain to drag a man who was stuck in an eddy (an area of swirling water).

The scene of the rescue was where there were two double drownings in the space of four days at Ahimate Reserve, on December 30 and January 2.

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Brett Davis had been walking his dog at the riverside at Ahimate Reserve on Saturday morning when his dog chased a stick into the water and got stuck in the eddy.

Flowers lay at the site of the river where four people drowned at the start of the year. (File photo).

“She had been in there for 10 minutes and this guy walked straight past me and I said ‘don’t go in the water’. He was fully clothed wearing trackpants, a hooded sweatshirt and shoes.

“He was in the water and not a great swimmer. I’m a strong swimmer, I’m an ocean swimmer, but I wasn’t going in there.”

The man’s own dog followed him into the water and got stuck in the eddy, too.

“I was in knee-deep water and one more step and it would have been over my head.”

A couple of other people arrived and together they formed a human chain, joining dog leads together to get the man out of the water.

“One guy, in his undies, he grabbed [the man]. There was another guy holding the dog leads, I’m holding him and there’s another guy holding me … We finally got this guy out who would have been in the water for 15 minutes and he was on his last breath.”

Davis said the man was going in circles floating on his back and was about to go under the water.

Rescue Emergency support team member Steven Williams brings Zephyr back to shore after he was stranded on an island in the Manawatū River.

“You would have been reporting on a death if we didn’t get him when we did.”

Emergency services later arrived and a fireman in a life jacket got Davis’ dog out. The dog was unharmed.

“That is the most dangerous section of water. It’s crazy. The water is just a whirlpool.”

Davis said the river might be OK for swimming in the summer but if it had been raining it was a “deathtrap”.

“[On Saturday] it was brown, slightly up, fast-flowing water.”

Once the man was out of the water, he took off after his dog towards the Awapuni Resource Recovery Park. The dog had been swept downstream and Davis believed it was the same dog that ended up on the island.

A rescue emergency support team from New Zealand Response Teams was called to save the dog and member Steven Williams said there was one dog on the island and two people were on the river bank.

“The dog has swum across and hasn’t been able to get back,” Williams said. “[The dog’s owner has] done the right thing and called emergency services.”

The island was not far from the river bank, but the water was “murky and relatively swift flowing”.

Williams used a rapid deployment craft, a small inflatable boat, to get across to the island.

The dog then jumped into the water and he had to grab it, put it in the boat and put a sling around it.

Williams said the dog, named Zephyr, was a bit scared but well-behaved.

A police spokesperson said two people involved had been taken to hospital to be assessed for hypothermia.