KEY POINTS:
An Australian teenager waded into river rapids to save his 9-year-old brother in Mt Aspiring National Park yesterday but could do nothing for their father, who was later found dead further down the river.
Holiday turned to tragedy for father-of-four Stephen Damien Colombo, 45, of Melbourne, who was on a hunting trip with his 17-year-old son Stefano and 9-year-old son Carlo when he tried to cross the Matukituki River, which eventually flows into Lake Wanaka in Central Otago.
Sergeant Aaron Nicholson, search and rescue co-ordinator for Wanaka, said Colombo and his younger son were swept away towards rapids as they tried to cross the river.
Nicholson said the older son was still on shore when the pair were carried away and ran alongside the river trying to keep sight of them.
He found his younger brother clinging to a rock about 3m from the shore in the main flow of the river, about 200-300m into the rapids.
"Police were amazed that he had survived that section of the river."
Nicholson said the young boy might have died, had his brother not waded into the river to pull him ashore.
Trampers alerted police, and a helicopter and rescue team found Colombo dead in shallow water at the end of the gorge and rapids.
"It is again a harsh and unfortunate reminder to people that river crossings claim more lives in New Zealand than just about any other activity in the outdoors and should be treated with the utmost respect," Nicholson said.
The younger boy sustained a broken tooth and knocks to the head; he was treated at Wanaka Medical Centre.
Nicholson said the two boys, with their two sisters, Kiara and Bianca, and their mother Karen and father had been in New Zealand since January 4 and were travelling around the country on holiday. He said Colombo's death would be referred to the coroner for a post mortem examination in Dunedin.
- NZPA
