KEY POINTS:
An experienced American kayaker died yesterday after becoming trapped between two fallen logs in the swollen Kaituna River near Okere Falls, northeast of Rotorua.
The 23-year-old man was one of four in a private party which had gone kayaking down the river in an area known as Awesome Gorge.
It is understood the front of his kayak became wedged between two trees, pulling him about a metre under the river's surface about 12.45pm.
The alarm was raised when one of the group crossed farmland to get cellphone coverage and call for help.
Search and Rescue, the BayTrust Rescue Helicopter and volunteer firefighters began searching and the man's partially submerged kayak was found about 4.40pm, 1.5km downstream of the Trout Pool carpark.
One of the professional kayakers called in to help, Nick Chater, said the terrain made the body's recovery difficult. "It was in a very straight piece of gorge, barely ten foot [3m] wide. A tree had come down from the cliff ... on an angle [and] another tree was angled out of the water, forming an x."
Mr Chater said the man's kayak became wedged under the lower part of the intersecting trees, jamming his body under the surface.
Constable Colin Fraser of Rotorua said two of the kayaking party were local. The other two were American.
"They were all very experienced."
It is believed storms had probably brought the trees down in the past week and made the river very high.
Some locals last night suggested it might have been too high to negotiate safely. But professional kayaker Andi Uhl said the man's death was more due to bad luck than the high flow.
He knew the two New Zealand men in the party. "They are very good, I would trust them with my life on the river. It wasn't foolhardy going into that river, it was a freak accident."
Raftabout owner Stephen McNab, who has also kayaked that section of the river, said his company had stopped rafting near Awesome Gorge about 18 months ago after a close call with logs and concerns about safety.
He said news of the death was "really, really sad for the kayaking community" but it was a high-risk sport and when a mistake was made or something went wrong the results were likely to be fatal.
