News
March 26, 2023
Asthma sufferer Haydon Kyle tells Jane Phare about his rescue by the Auckland Westpac Rescue Helicopter at the height of Cyclone Gabrielle.
As far as Haydon Kyle is concerned, the rescue helicopter crew who rescued him from a storm-strewn beach at Karekare during Cyclone Gabrielle helped save his life.
He wants to tell his story to help support a fund-raising lottery for the helicopter service. Kyle’s nightmare began on February 13, the day the cyclone slammed the tiny west coast community while he and a work colleague were on a night shift maintenance patrol for infrastructure provider Ventia. Their job that evening was to assess any new slips, fallen trees or debris, and put up warning signs and cones on roads to make sure residents were warned of the danger.
But as Kyle and his colleague were driving a first responder truck along Karekare Rd, suddenly they were the ones in trouble. Without warning the cliff above started to slip in multiple places. On the other side of the narrow road was a 100-metre drop. Within minutes they were trapped at both ends of the road - no way forward and no way back.
As darkness fell, the wind and rain increased.
“The wind was the worst,” Kyle recalls. “You could hear the trees cracking. There was water everywhere and we had slips just in front of us. It was horrendous.”
And then Kyle began having an asthma attack, possibly brought on by the increased stress. His asthma medication was in his car back at the Ventia base in Henderson.
Fearing his asthma would become severe, Kyle was relieved to hear voices in the dark. Police officer Shawn Wanden-Hannay and his daughter Jessika, a lifeguard, were making their way along Karekare Rd to check on Wanden-Hannay’s mother.
“I’m a big man and we were trapped,” says Kyle. “If it wasn’t for Shawn and Jessika who came along and showed us how to get out, I don’t believe we would have survived.”
Wanden-Hannay and his daughter led the way in the dark and rain, guiding them across slips that were still moving, breaking trees and debris to get to Karekare village where Wanden-Hannay’s mother lived, what Kyle now calls “a safe house”.
“Through all of that I was having asthma [attacks] and I was really struggling.”
Jessika Wanden-Hannay went on ahead to get an inhaler from another resident and Kyle was given a bed for the night. The next morning members of the Urban Search and Rescue treated Kyle and called in the rescue helicopter.
Looking back, the 54-year-old says knowing help was on the way was comforting.
“Knowing that it was over and the helicopter was taking me home was awesome. I started to calm down a bit then.”
Without that rescue, he doubts he would have survived. The only way out was a steep 5km climb up to Piha Rd, a slippery route which that night was littered with debris.
“I wouldn’t have made that walk, which is why they got the helicopter in because if anything had happened to me on the way out it would have been over.”
For Kyle, used to working in all conditions, Cyclone Gabreille was his worst experience.
“No one could foresee what happened. It was a freak weather event that clipped us out west.”
Kyle’s company Ventia this month donated $10,000 to the United North Piha Lifeguard Service after thousands of dollars worth of critical equipment, including radios, were stolen from the clubhouse.
During the presentation Ventia’s general manager for transport in New Zealand said the company’s crews helped to maintain roads and critical infrastructure during extreme weather.
“We’ve seen firsthand the devastating impacts of Cyclone Gabrielle and the critical role the lifeguard service has played in the response.” Two Ventia employees received assistance during Cyclone Gabrielle while at Karekare making the cause all the more personal, he said.
Critical care paramedic Casey Drum remembers that February 14 rescue flight aboard W2, one of the Auckland rescue helicopters.
Pilot Rob Anderson assisted by co-pilot Vasya Makhinko took off from Ardmore Airport just after midday to collect Kyle in difficult, gusty conditions. Rather than fly straight to Karekare overland and strike even more turbulence, Anderson headed out across the Manukau Heads and up the coast in the hope of a smoother ride.
Drum downplays the conditions that day but admits it was “super gusty”. The previous day, the same helicopter crew had turned back after attempting to locate missing yachtie John Mellars whose trimaran had come adrift from its mooring at Great Barrier Island causing him to drift out to sea. There’s little doubt the flight to collect Kyle was rough.
Buffeted by high winds spilling over the Manukau Heads, the helicopter was at the mercy of Cyclone Gabrielle’s force.
“When the wind is dumping down on top of you it feels like the helicopter is dropping from beneath you,” Drum says.
“Those sorts of conditions get a bit rough. It can get a little bit unsettling.”
