KEY POINTS:
An afternoon fishing trip for a Dunedin double amputee almost turned to tragedy yesterday when the 60-year-old had to spend 35 minutes clinging to sharp rocks.
Peter Dalton was laughing last night about the incident but said he was "right towards the end" of his strength when rescued, and would have drowned if he had been in the water any longer.
It is the latest of a string of injuries for Mr Dalton, who lost his legs as a 14-year-old milk boy when they were crushed by a reversing milk truck.
He was knocked out during a home invasion in 2000, then needed a liver transplant, had a shoulder operation and last year suffered a broken femur.
Mr Dalton was fishing from his wheelchair on the sloping bank of the Southern Reservoir at 3pm yesterday.
"I said to Roy [his carer], one more cast and that's it.
"I said, 'I'll try to make it a big one', and it was a big one."
So big, in fact, that Mr Dalton's wheelchair fell forward and he tumbled head-first into the reservoir, over a concrete embankment that surrounds it.
Without legs, he struggled to keep afloat, and had to grip on to a rock ledge made of stones he described as "like sharp pieces of glass".
His carer helped him as much as he could but struggled on the slippery rocks.
He ran to Reservoir Rd to get help, calling emergency services from a nearby house.
"If I was on my own, I would have been a goner," Mr Dalton said.
Shaking with cold, he was running out of strength when ambulance, police and fire appliances arrived about 3.35pm.
He said the ambulance officers could not extract him and it took firefighters with a flotation bed to get him out.
Lookout Point Senior Station Officer Ian Anderson said four firemen used ropes attached to ladders, and the flotation bed, to lift the amputee from the water.
Mr Dalton was taken to Dunedin Hospital and treated for cuts and abrasions.
Last night, he said the incident had not put him off fishing.
- OTAGO DAILY TIMES
