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A man is in hospital after a five-hour ordeal when he was trapped under a huge boulder that crushed his legs.
Firefighters estimate the rock that came down on a 32-year-old man near Cape Farewell at the tip of the South Island must have weighed about 500 kilograms.
The man was airlifted to Wellington Hospital with serious leg injuries.
Nelson-Marlborough rescue helicopter pilot Duncan Gourley said the man was walking along a remote beach at Kaihoka Point at 8.30pm yesterday when the rock gave way.
Mr Gourley said the man fell with the rock for about three metres and ended up underneath it.
"I think that guy would have to have been been particularly unlucky given the way it happened and ended up."
Duncan Gourley said firefighters had to be airlifted into the spot, and used driftwood and fenceposts as well as airbags and lifting gear to drag the man out from underneath the rock before winching him out.
- NEWSTALK ZB
