"There was definitely a frozen moment where I thought I couldn't keep going.
"There was a teacher at the top trying to talk me through it and saying, 'Do you trust the gear?'
"I said 'No I don't'."
As well as inducing terror, exposure to heights makes her "a bit shaky" and her legs start to feel heavy.
Fear of heights - as well as fears of flying, animals, having an injection or seeing blood, for example - fall within "specific phobias", a form of anxiety disorder experienced by 7 per cent of New Zealand adults in the preceding 12 months, a mental health survey found.
The trial, overseen by professor of general practice Bruce Arroll, involves neuro-linguistic programming, a psychological therapy developed in the 1970s.
"It is still considered a bit fringe," he said, although he uses it successfully in his own medical practice.
Trials of the therapy, although poorly designed, indicated it help-ed about 70 per cent of patients.
The aim of his trial is to prove the therapy can be used in general practice as an effective and relatively simple intervention.
It involves the patient describing a fear-of-heights event to the therapist in among calming thoughts and relaxation techniques, and a technique to weaken the effect of the memory.
"It's manipulating memory of the frightening event," said Professor Arroll.
"We scramble the pathway that's not working and the healthy part of the brain takes over. When it works, people feel something big has happened."
Ms Rumsey had the treatment - a single session - about nine weeks ago and said it had worked for her, although she had put it to the test only on small heights so far, "nothing like the big abseil".
"It was running through the sequence of events from my big fear moment and putting it in a different perspective.
"I used the same technique around exam time. It was quite good just to de-stress a little bit."
Phobias
"Specific phobias" are a form of anxiety disorder
•They can involve fears of various things, such as heights, flying, animals or needles
•Estimated prevalence: 7 % of New Zealand adults have experienced a specific phobia in the preceding 12 months
•Signs include nausea, shaking, sweating, dizziness, racing heart
•Treatments: psycho-social therapies, antidepressants and tranquilliser medications
•Neuro-linguistic programming: A therapy to de-sensitise the person to their feared situation by imagining it among calm thoughts and weakening its hold
•"If they're worried about the boss, they change the shape of the boss and put the boss to the horizon. It takes away that feeling of stress." - Professor Bruce Arroll
'Lessons for searchers' in death of climbers
Sending a specialist alpine team to rescue two climbers stranded on Mt Taranaki by road instead of by helicopter set their rescue back by 12 hours, a coroner has ruled.
The two Auckland climbers, Nicole Sutton, 29, and Hiroki Ogawa, 31, died of hypothermia after rescuers spent two days trying to reach them at Labour Weekend last year.
Coroner Chris Devonport yesterday released his findings into their deaths, saying there were many lessons to be learned.
"In general they include to plan according to weather forecasts; to monitor changing weather conditions; to have a plan including when to be off the mountain; to be prepared to have to stay for longer than anticipated in weather more adverse than anticipated."
He highlighted other issues, including deciding against bringing a search team from the Ruapehu Alpine Rescue Organisation (Raro) to New Plymouth by a RNZAF Iroquois helicopter. The team was instead forced to drive for four hours following lengthy discussions about transportation.
It was estimated the decision set the operation back by 12 hours.
The issue had been a point of contention for the Sutton and Ogawa families at the inquest last month.
"Had that occurred, valuable hours may have been saved in reaching Dr Ogawa and Ms Sutton," Mr Devonport said.
"Whether that would have resulted in a different outcome is unknown."
There was also confusion over whether the use of another helicopter was available to the Raro teams to use.
Mr Devonport ruled that the information was available to the incident management team.
"In retrospect, use of the Helicopter Services Ltd Squirrel helicopter for transportation of Raro members from National Park to Mt Taranaki or New Plymouth would likely have resulted in search and rescuers reaching Dr Ogawa and Ms Sutton earlier," he said.
However, the coroner said while he believed improvements could be made for future search and rescue operations "those improvements are operational matters for police and search and rescue organisations".
"I am sure that those organisations will have learned lessons from the operation."
He said the deaths of the Auckland couple "should not dissuade participation in adventurous outdoor activities".
He praised Dr Ogawa, an experienced climber, for doing "all that he could to save their lives" and who stayed with Ms Sutton. However, the weather closed in around them and although he hacked an ice shelf into the frozen ground, it was not large enough to shelter them both from the harsh conditions.
