Ross Millichamp, who lost both legs after a flesh-eating disease suffered in 2008, remains one of New Zealand's great outdoorsmen. Photo / George Heard
Fourteen years ago, Ross Millichamp had both legs amputated after catching a flesh-eating bug on a hunting trip. But the life-altering event hasn't stopped him from exploring his beloved back country and fishing, hunting, flying and jet-boating. Herald senior journalist Kurt Bayer meets one of New Zealand's great outdoorsmen.
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Lying in hospital, week after week, Ross Millichamp had never felt so stagnant.
An avid reader, especially tales of adventure, Battle of Britain fighter pilots and Antarctic expeditions, he could barely read a page before he was too tired to continue.
Both legs were gone below the knee. He yearned for the bush or a shingly riverbank.
He cast his mind back to his last trip: hunting and fishing with some mates on Stewart Island/Rakiura.
It was there that his life changed forever.
After fishing, a small cut or insect bite became infected. He went downhill over a few days and 24 hours before he was due to leave by boat, he knew he was in trouble. The pain in his shoulder was intense.
Through a mountain radio, he called for medical help and was flown to Invercargill Hospital by rescue helicopter.
Extensive tests showed a rare bacterial condition, necrotising fasciitis, or flesh-eating disease.
His body went into septic shock. His organs started shutting down.
The next thing he knew he was in Christchurch Hospital's intensive care unit. He had woken to find both legs amputated at the knees, the only way to remove the diseased flesh and stop it from ravaging his body any further and taking his life.
It wasn't clear just how he got infected.
But what was apparent was that life would never be the same.
Because Millichamp, author of the classic New Zealand angling book Salmon Fever, grew up in the outdoors. It has always, in many ways, defined his life.
He had been a Fish and Game field officer for many years before becoming manager of Fish & Game North Canterbury.
And when he wasn't working, he'd be out doing what he loved anyway.
So when the disease struck him, he was adamant he was going to continue.
Many amputees, he learned, lose limbs through diabetes or circulation issues. Not many suffer the misfortune early in active lives.
"There's not a lot of people to go to for advice, you just have to figure out a lot of it yourself," he says.
While he was still in hospital, a psychiatrist visited. He asked Millichamp what he wanted to do once he returned home.
Millichamp said: Everything I used to do.
But the psychiatrist gently hinted that he might want to try something new.
"I saw that as a bit of an admission that I would never recover but it was quite wise advice," Millichamp says.
"If you want to return to your life exactly as it was, you're going to be constantly comparing life today as it used to be. When you go salmon fishing, deer hunting, or whatever, even if you have success, you're always confronted by how more difficult it is now than what it used to be.
"So the advice was quite sound and by picking something new meant I wasn't constantly comparing it to what I had before."
Millichamp, who lives on a rural property at Greendale, 45kms west of Christchurch on the Canterbury Plains, had always fancied learning to fly. He'd once met two Second World War Spitfire pilots and was spellbound by their stories.
But, like many people, he found that he never had the time to pursue lessons. Now, he suddenly had the time.
About six months out of hospital, where he spent more than five months, he started lessons at Canterbury Aero Club in Christchurch.
It was a new group of people and a whole new challenge. He was already getting sick of meeting people who were stunned to see his condition and asking what happened to him.
"People were genuinely interested but it does become repetitive, and did keep taking me back to that situation – and at some point, you have got to put it past you."
By taking to the skies, he was enjoying the freedom, but also the structure and challenge of ticking off the next steps of the process.
The tricky part was passing the medical tests required to get his pilot's license.
"The medical people weren't very helpful," he smiles ruefully.
It also took time before he was allowed to carry passengers.
Eventually, the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) relented and he decided he needed his own aircraft, to give him the freedom to fly wherever he wanted, whenever he wanted.
In 2011, he bought a Cessna 172 – a four-seater plane which has become the most popular single-engine aircraft ever built – and took off around the South Island.
He hasn't made any modifications to the cockpit or controls, and manages to manipulate the pedals with his prosthetic feet.
As his love for tripping into the back country grew, he decided he needed "something a bit gruntier" and upgraded to a Cessna 182 – which has a larger engine and prop, while carrying more fuel.
It's kept in a hangar on his Canterbury property, pointing towards his narrow grass airstrip, kept short by a flock of sheep.
His wife Jinny, while "not particularly adventurous", has been all over the country with him and "landed in all sorts of weird places".
"It's something that we've ended up doing quite a bit together which I wasn't expecting, to be honest. But we've had a lot of fun."
His other great passion is, of course, angling.
But MIllichamp, now 57, doesn't much go for salmon these days. He's been saddened at witnessing the salmon fisheries decline over the years, and it's got to the stage that "killing a fish feels a bit wrong really because they are struggling".
He still spends plenty of time on the ocean though.
Once or twice a year he still heads south to the wilds of Stewart Island, despite it being the scene of his infection.
It took him a few years before he was game enough to return – but he's fallen back in love with the place.
"Stewart Island is quite remote. Even in Fiordland you can go on a boat and be parked up in a little bay and there are cruise ships, helicopters and planes going past all the time. But in Stewart Island, you see the odd yachtie on a big adventure or a commercial fisherman, but it feels a long way from society. It's just grown on me really."
He loves walking in thick bush even if he can't sneak up on his quarry like he used to.
"I'm as noisy as all hell now, but I've still shot the odd deer, and you come to accept that just being there is a great thing," he says.
Earlier this month Millichamp flew to the North Island and went marlin fishing with a mate off Waihau Bay, 42km north of Gisborne.
He'd caught a few marlin before his injuries, but always from big charter boats with a professional crew.
This time, he was fishing out of a trailer boat – just him and his friend. All of the gear is designed for able-bodied people, with harnesses that utilise leg power and take the weight off arms.
Happy to just be on the water, Millichamp never imagined that within a few hours he would land a giant.
The marlin fought for about 90 minutes before he finally reeled it in – a beauty weighing approximately 110kgs. They tagged it and released it back into the deep blue sea.
Wading in rivers while fishing can be challenging, with the stones constantly shifting beneath him.
"There are lots of things that are more difficult, it's just a matter of working through it and accepting it won't be as easy as it used to be," says Millichamp, who now works part-time on working groups for Environment Canterbury (ECan).
Some of the things he does are not without risk. Sometimes he thinks if the jetboat broke down here and he had to get out and swim he might, he pauses, "... struggle".
But a bigger risk for him would be sitting at home and becoming idle.
"For a lot of people with disabilities, the difficulty is that if they're less active, there are other risks you face in terms of health and wellbeing," says Millichamp - who pranged his jetboat in Fiordland just before Christmas, hitting a rock he knew was there in low water.
"There are some things I do where there's a bit of risk, but you have to live with that.
"I'm quite good at figuring out solutions to things. I can usually figure out a way."
