KEY POINTS:
An injured caver trapped underground could be brought out as early as tonight, rescuers said today.
A team of 50 rescuers are working to reach Michael Brewer, 47, from inside the Greenlink-Middle Earth cave system beneath Takaka Hill.
Dr Brewer suffered head and leg injuries when a rock hit him as he was surveying and mapping the cave system with three companions about 5pm on Saturday.
"He's probably got a fracture in the pelvic area," rescue co-ordinator Hugh Flower said today.
"He appears to have recovered from his knock on the head, he's pretty cheerful...got painkillers into him and now starts the long slow process of inching him out of there."
Mr Flower said the rescue team has reached an area known as Smaug's Hall which, in terms of length, is halfway.
He said Mr Brewer could be brought out late tonight or tomorrow morning, depending on the progress made through the narrow passages.
"They had one section where they did 50 metres in three hours," Mr Flower said.
He said some members of the team have now been underground for 20 hours.
"We've got another dozen local cavers coming in to relieve them," Mr Flower said.
He said 44 people were underground and some would need to be relieved.
Mr Flower said Mr Brewer is concussed, has broken ribs and is likely to have a broken pelvis or leg.
"But he's in good condition. He's as comfortable as can be and talking," Mr Flower said.
Dr Brewer spoke to his wife, Sarah, by cellphone yesterday. "We managed to talk to Michael not long after they got the communications in there," Mrs Brewer said. "He sounds quite cheerful and it was great to hear his voice."
"There's basically everyone you'd want to be rescuing you turned up to help," Mrs Brewer told Radio New Zealand this morning.
"I know the systems, I know how things work, I know all the people that are involved and the response from the cavers has just been fantastic."
She said her husband had been in the caving system dozens of times, and while he had been trapped by floodwaters before, he had never before been immobilised by injury while caving
A caver herself and usually part of search and rescue teams, she is staying on the surface with the couple's two teenage daughters.
Mrs Brewer said the family were "very relieved" to hear that her husband's condition had not deteriorated overnight.
A rescue party of five people, including a doctor, went into the cave about 5am yesterday, rescue co-ordinator Hugh Flower said.
About 50 rescuers will take turns to help move Dr Brewer out of the cave system and back to the surface.
Dr Brewer is about 3km into the caving system, which usually takes about five hours to travel, Mr Flower said.
Mr Flower said rescuers had managed to get a communications system into Dr Brewer about 5.30pm yesterday, and he had spoken to his wife and daughters.
"We've now got to start the slow process of getting him out, which is basically passing him from hand to hand with relay teams, which will probably take a couple of days," Mr Flower said.
"The fact that he's not mobile means we're going to have to move him from hand to hand, so it's going to take a long time. There are lots of tight squeezes, and ups and downs."
The Greenlink-Middle Earth cave system is listed as the country's 10th-deepest (394m) and 14th-longest (5228m) on the New Zealand Speleological Society website.
Dr Brewer is trapped near New Zealand's deepest shaft, Harwood's Hole, an area notorious for troubling even the most experienced cavers.
Ironically, he was one of those involved in the 1999 rescue, which took three days to get a caver from 5.5km inside caves in the nearby Mt Owen.
- NZPA, NZ HERALD STAFF
