Staveley Ice skating rink in Mid Canterbury.
A person has died today following an incident at an ice skating rink in Canterbury earlier this week.
It is the second death at an ice skating rink in Canterbury in two weeks.
The person was airlifted in a critical condition from Staveley Ice Rink in Mid Canterbury on Friday afternoon.
A Hato Hone St John spokesperson said they responded to the ice skating rink shortly before 4pm on Friday with one ambulance and a helicopter.
A police spokesperson said they attended a sudden death at Christchurch Hospital this morning in relation to the incident.
“The death will be referred to the coroner.”
A spokesman for the Staveley Hall Society, which manages the ice rink, declined to comment out of respect for the person’s family. He said the incident had occurred during a private curling function.
The death comes less than two weeks after 13-year-old Kymani Hiley-Hetaraka died after suffering a catastrophic fall while ice skating on a school trip.
Kymani was transported to Christchurch Hospital in a critical condition on the morning of July 30 after the incident at the city’s Alpine Ice Sports Centre.
Her family said that she had suffered an unsurvivable head injury.
Two days after the incident, a family member announced Kymani had passed away in hospital.
Curtis Gwatkin and Maraea Hetaraka, Kymani’s parents, say their “baby” should not have had to die for something to change and that she should have been wearing a helmet.
In July, former Olympic speed skater Andrew Nicholson said he was lucky to be alive after falling through a frozen dam in Central Otago.
Nicholson, who earned a fourth place in a skating event at the 1992 Winter Olympics, was skating at Lower Manorburn Dam when he moved 3m from the thick ice markers and fell through the ice.
“I went in instantly, over my head in water and cries unheard,” Nicholson said in a post on social media.
Nicholson told the Herald he realised he’d made a “big mistake”.
The 19-year-old was found in a remote area in the hills of Upper Hutt.