Motocross rider suffers suspected back injuries after riding off steep bank

The Auckland Westpac Rescue Helicopter was tasked to a rural property in Miranda to assist a motocross rider who rode off a 30-metre bank. Photo / Auckland Rescue Helicopter Trust

A motocross rider has suffered suspected back injuries after riding off a steep bank in the Thames district.

The Auckland Westpac Rescue Helicopter was tasked to a rural property in Miranda at 11.37am today to assist the rider after he rode off a 30-metre bank.

"When we go there, there were already the local first response and police on scene and we landed at the top of a little hill," pilot James Tayler said.

"They showed us where somebody has gone over the edge of a steep bank on their motorbike. The patient was probably about 30-40m down the bank.

"From what we can gather, he had been down there about half an hour before we arrived.

"Our medic and doctor scrambled down the bank to assess the patient who was a man in his 20s."

Tayler said the man was assessed to have moderate injuries with a back injury appearing to be the worst.

Because of the steepness of the area, he needed to be winched out, he said.

"They prepared him and put him on our stretcher system and then because of how steep it was we thought it would be too risky to try and carry him back up there, so we winched him from where he was back onto the flat ground at the top."

The patient was then flown to Middlemore Hospital.

Tayler said the incident happened on farm land, at the edge of a rural property, where man had been riding in a paddock.

"Fortunately he was wearing a helmet, which was a good thing," he said.