Missing teen Maia Johnston facing surgery after fall at Upper Hutt waterfall

• Maia Johnston, 19, has been been found alive after going missing on Saturday evening.
• The Hamilton woman suffered multiple injuries after a fall by a waterfall in Upper Hutt bush.
• She was rescued yesterday afternoon after more than 40 hours missing.

A teenager missing for two nights in Upper Hutt is facing surgery after falling at a waterfall in the bush.

The 19-year-old was found by rescuers yesterday afternoon after hundreds of people joined in a community search for her.

Maia Johnston was last seen on Saturday evening about 8pm when she told her loved ones she was heading out for a walk to get some space.

Her family began searching for her a short time later, increasingly worried as they realised she had disappeared without her phone and wallet.

Amy Walsh appealed for sightings of her missing daughter Maia Johnston. Photo / Melissa Nightingale

In an update posted to Facebook, mum Amy Walsh said her daughter was in hospital “with a long recovery ahead”.

“She’s in her first of many surgeries now and will be in hospital for several weeks. Thank you again to each and every person who supported us in getting her back,” she wrote.

“She has fought like a trooper for 42 hours alone after falling at a waterfall and getting some quite bad injuries . . . thankfully nothing that can’t be fixed. One day at a time.”

It is understood Johnston was found somewhere along the Cannon Point trail, which starts just minutes away from the place she was last seen in the suburb of Tōtara Park.

Maia Johnston, 19, has been found alive after two nights of searching.

The popular track, considered an intermediate-level trail, zigzags uphill from Tulsa Park through private land and the Akatarawa Forest to take walkers to the historic Birchville Dam.

Family members and friends embraced Johnston as she was carried out of the bush by search and rescue, and loaded into an ambulance.

Walsh said she was in disbelief when police told her that her daughter had been found alive.

“I thought she was dead,” she told RNZ.

She said other than her physical injuries, her daughter was well and “cracking jokes”.

Walsh earlier told the Herald it would take time to extract Johnston from the bush.

“But she is alive and that’s all that matters.”

Maia Johnston (left) disappeared from mum Amy Walsh's house in Tōtara Park, Upper Hutt, on Saturday evening.

The community effort to find Johnston was strong, with searchers setting up a base at the Tōtara Park School hall, where strangers could come to receive instruction on where to look.

Flyers were printed and people were sent doorknocking to ask local residents to check their CCTV cameras for sightings of Johnston.

Yesterday morning, just hours before Johnston was found, Walsh made a heartfelt plea to her daughter to come home, saying she didn’t believe Johnston had simply gone to a party or gotten in someone’s car, but that it was possible.

“Maia, if you’re out there and you did get in someone’s car and you now feel embarrassed because there are hundreds of people looking for you and you’re all over the news, just come home,” she said.

“Maia if you’re out there, come home. You’re not in trouble, just come home.”

Melissa Nightingale is a Wellington-based reporter who covers crime, justice and news in the capital. She joined the Herald in 2016 and has worked as a journalist for 10 years.