KEY POINTS:
For seven excruciating hours Tom Harvey stood on a tiny rock ledge, his fingers clinging to two small crevices while his fraying rope held him above a 50m chasm inside New Zealand's deepest vertical shaft.
The 22-year-old, who is in New Zealand on a two-year working holiday from the county of Suffolk, England, was one of three people rescued from the notorious Harwoods Holes sinkhole on Golden Bay's Takaka Hill near Nelson last night.
Speaking to the Herald moments after he was rescued, Mr Harvey said he feared for his life.
"It was the single most terrifying moment of my life," he said.
His friend, 27-year-old Tina Bark from Arizona, was about 30m above him and her partner Leon Davis, was about to abseil himself into the hole when the group realised there was trouble about 10.30am yesterday.
The 27-year-old American ran for 40 minutes before he could raise the alarm.
More than 50 Nelson Bays search and rescue volunteers left their workplaces and came to assist the group.
Ms Bark was hauled up about 8.30, and Mr Harvey followed soon after.
Both were checked by medical staff and were uninjured.
Their friend, Welshman Ben Jones, 22, who had reached the bottom of the chasm, was being led out through the Starlight cave system by a team of experienced cavers.
Tasman Search and Rescue district co-ordinator Hugh Flower expected Mr Jones to be out by about 1am today.
Enjoying a cigarette and a cup of coffee, but still shocked from his ordeal, Mr Harvey could not find the words to say what was going through his head for those seven hours.
"It was kind of weird," he said. "I was abseiling and it was all really cool, spectacular caves, everything was going smoothly and I looked down and I just saw threads not rope - the sheath had totally gone from the rope."
"I looked up and there was three metres of sheathless rope."
Mr Harvey and the group emerged from a tent after a debrief with emergency services, where they expressed their thanks to all the volunteers who had come to their rescue.
Emerging from the chasm, Ms Bark appeared shaken and said: "It was a pretty traumatic experience".
"But we are all safe and unharmed and are very grateful to those who helped."
Some of volunteer rescuers criticised the group for not being properly prepared.
The cavers said they were experienced in the outdoors and they researched the cave before entering.
But rescuers said the equipment they were using was intended for rock climbing not caving.
Mr Flower said Harwoods Hole was in in a different part of Takaka Hill to where Motueka doctor Michael Brewer spent two days trapped 400m below the surface last August.
It was notoriously dangerous, and one or two rescues were carried out there each year.
"It's 200m deep and about 50-60m across. You certainly need to know what you are doing."
- additional reporting Elizabeth Binning and James Ihaka
