My 60th birthday bike ride on the Dunstan Track didn’t exactly go according to plan. I’ve ridden the track previously and certainly wasn’t doing anything stupid or reckless at the time of the accident, but a mechanical failure caused me to lose control of the bike coming down and around a hairpin turn, put my left foot down, and SNAP! After a brief blackout, I came to….looked down, and my foot was at a horribly abnormal angle. I immediately knew I was in big trouble!

While the ride didn’t go well, the emergency planning did. My wife and I were on Day 3 of our 3-day bike tour so thankfully we had warm clothes, an emergency bivvy bag, a Garmin InReach Mini 2, and a supply of unused painkillers from previous injuries. I immediately triggered the SOS on the Garmin InReach, put on warm clothes, slid into the bivvy bag, took some morphine and only needed to wait about 30 minutes for the rescue helicopter to arrive and put me out of my misery.

The air rescue crew were phenomenal. Calm, professional, caring….everything I could have hoped for in the circumstances. They flew me to Dunedin Hospital where I spent the rest of my birthday week. The injury tally was 3 fractures in the tib/fib plus a complete ankle dislocation. I now have 10 screws and 1 plate wrapped up in a big cast and will be hobbling around on crutches for 6 weeks.

I'd sincerely like to thank the entire team responsible for my rescue. I cannot imagine a better service exists anywhere in the world, and we are so lucky to have you here in our little slice of paradise.