A 23-year-old driver who spent 10 hours trapped in his car in a stream was rescued after being spotted by a 12-year-old boy.
Papakura sergeant Dave Readings said the Papatoetoe chef appeared to have failed to take a left hand corner on the remote Kawakawa Bay Rd in South Auckland about 10pm on Friday night.
"He left the road and crashed down a 10m bank and came to rest within a stream at the bottom of the bank. He spent the whole night trapped in his vehicle.
"At 8am the next morning a member of the public was driving with his son who was looking out of the window trying to see a waterfall when he told his father he could see a car in the river," he said.
"It wasn't easy to see the vehicle from the road so he was very lucky. It took us a substantial amount of time to extricate him and he was flown by helicopter to hospital with neck injuries," he said.