KEY POINTS:
A farmer spent more than 24 hours standing with his hand trapped in hydraulic equipment on the back of his tractor.
Rescuers say the man was lucky to be alive for many reasons. They say it was fortunate the tractor, which was left running the entire time so that the hydraulics could work, was parked in a shed with no doors as the man could have been poisoned by fumes and died.
He was also lucky that the tractor did not start moving, dragging him behind it.
The man had also been wearing more clothing then usual as it was a cold morning. The extra insulation lasted him throughout the chilly night.
The drama unfolded on Monday morning when the sharemilker, aged about 48, had been out using his tractor on the 80ha dairy farm he lives on on Journeys End at Tapora, west of Wellsford.
He started having problems with a round bale feeder - which he had just bought second-hand from a neighbour - on the back of the tractor, so he parked it back in the shed.
On the phone, the neighbour advised him to adjust a valve underneath the equipment but as he tried to do that he knocked something that made the hydraulics move and clamps came up and jammed his hand.
Westpac Rescue Helicopter crewman Tinny Cannell said the man was trapped half standing, half crouching and jammed against other equipment - which left bruises on his chest - from about 10am until 3pm yesterday when he was found by a neighbour. The farmer's body was so twisted he was unable to do anything to release the pressure.
"The tractor was running when he got trapped so luckily it was in an open implement shed because if it was in a garage or an enclosed space he would have been poisoned."
The farmer lived and worked alone on the property after recently moving from Matamata where his wife and children still live. They are understood to be joining him soon.
After unsuccessful attempts to contact her husband overnight, the man's wife phoned a neighbour to ask him to look for him.
While the man was trapped, he had heard several motorbikes going past and shouted himself hoarse trying to get help, Mr Cannell said.
"He was there for a long time. He couldn't go anywhere or do anything and he just yelled himself stupid and that was about all he could do really."
A St John ambulance and a doctor from Wellsford freed the man's swollen and discoloured hand and assessed the damage before the Westpac Rescue Helicopter arrived and flew him to Auckland City Hospital for further treatment.
Helicopter paramedic Bruce Kerr said the way the man's hand was positioned in the equipment meant fluid was forced into the area and it couldn't escape causing a condition called compartment syndrome.
He said the man had to have splits cut down each of his fingers to let pressure out.
- David Eames
