Teenagers’ sea rescue: Washed off a Napier beach stormwater pipe

A young woman is winched from the sea by helicopter off the Marine Parade coast. Photo / Warren Buckland

Two people rescued from heavy Napier coastline seas on Wednesday afternoon had been hit by a wave while standing on a stormwater pipe extending on to the beach.

The witness view has been confirmed by police Hawke’s Bay Area commander Lincoln Sycamore, a day after two of his officers leapt into the surf to save a 19-year-old female.

A male, also 19, had made it back to shore and both were taken by Hato Hone St John Ambulance to Hawke’s Bay Hospital in Hastings for assessment and were discharged a few hours later.

The outfall is less than 200 metres on the Port of Napier side of the public viewing platform which extends out over the waves crashing on the beach, but which had been closed by the Napier City Council since last Saturday because of the danger created by three-metre swells.

A warning sign blocked the entrance to that platform as it had done since last Saturday, and other signs were in place nearby, including close to the outfall pipe, which is higher up the beach, closer to the pathway, and was being reached by the occasional wave, while seas had been crashing against the front of the viewing platform.

The Marine Parade viewing platform was still closed today after five days of heavy seas. Two young people understood to have been standing on a stormwater outfall pipe about 200 metres away were washed into the sea and rescued yesterday. Photo / Caron Copek

A person who arrived on the beach moments after the wave hit the couple described how the pair was pushed to the right down the loose-shingle beach and into the surf.

Sycamore said police were alerted about 2.20pm with reports of two people in the water. Two officers were quickly on the scene, one a trained lifeguard with their own equipment and wetsuit who leapt into the surf to try to rescue the couple.

While the male made it back to shore, police reached the female as she was being taken beyond the breakers and she was supported in the water awaiting the Lowe Corporation Rescue Helicopter which, with a growing number of onlookers on the beach hoisted the woman and one officer in separate lifts to safety on the shore.

The second officer was taken aboard Port of Napier pilot boat the Pania and transferred soon afterwards to Coastguard Hawke’s Bay’s rescue craft the Celia Knowles.

The young woman's rescuers bring her safely on dry land. Photo / Warren Buckland

“These people were very lucky,” said Sycamore, thanking Surf Life Saving and Coastguard for the assistance in a successful rescue.

It was the latest of numerous similar incidents on the coast off Marine Parade, including at least seven fatalities since the mid-1990s, but there have also been numerous rescues.

Two were just five weeks apart in 1994, one when a former Danish swimming champion was snatched off the beach by a wave during an idyllic January 31 7am stroll along the beach with her husband, who was stunned to see she had disappeared from his side and was being carried out beyond the breakers.

A surf life saver on his way to work stopped, grabbed a rescue belt from his car, dived into the surf to reach the woman and get her back ashore just as a rescue helicopter was approaching the scene.

And on March 3 that year a young woman on a late night stroll was also dragged out to sea, her stunned partner guided only by her screams in the dark calling for help, with a police officer stripping and diving into the water to effect a rescue as further police arrived and played a light on rescuer and rescuer struggled in the seas.