Paraglider in hospital after crash at Karioitahi Beach

A paraglider has crashed at a beach southwest of Auckland city, near Waiuku. Image / Google Maps

A paraglider who crashed at a beach near Auckland managed to climb a cliff and relaunch to fly black to civilisation for help.

The man, aged about 35, crashed his paraglider 10km up the coast from Karioitahi, near Waiuku.

He landed heavily from a height of about 10m, a spokesman for the Auckland Westpac Rescue Helicopter said.

"Knowing he had no communication at the crash scene, he managed to climb up a cliff, relaunch and fly back to Karioitahi," the spokesman said.

"He landed without further injury or incident. A member of the public called for help at a local business."

He sustained multiple potentially serious injuries and was airlifted to Auckland City Hospital.

A St John ambulance spokeswoman said the call for help was made at 12:37pm.

Intensive care paramedic Chris Deacon said the team was "apprehensive" when they heard it was a paragliding crash.

"Historically we've been to a number of paraponters at Karioitahi and one I did a couple of years ago, the guy landed on a steep ridge and ended up sleeping the night there inside his canopy until we winched him off in the morning . . . we've been to others who are deceased.

"It's a relatively safe sport but if things go bad they go really bad."

Deacon said the man lay on the beach for some time before mustering the determination to crawl up some sand dunes and relaunch, despite his injuries.

"He didn't have any cellphone reception so he would have just laid their forever. He would have just laid there and died of hypothermia I imagine. So, reluctantly, he relaunched himself and flew down the beach and landed again somewhat roughly back by the surf club by Karioitahi."

Deacon said the man, who "seems to be a fairly good-humoured sort of a fellow", was in "genuine pain" and was given pain relief at the scene.

"I have to say, he's a tough cookie. When we got to him he was in considerable pain. We were able to alleviate that with medication but he had to climb up those sand dunes without the aid of any pain relief."

Deacon said he had met a few paraponters in his time, and always found them to be "resourceful" and "independent" people.