Rescue in the Rimutakas

Te Ao Hou, June 1966, Page 38

Rescue in the Rimutakas A fortunate coincidence led Mr G. Wyeth to the home of Sister W. Meijer, a registered nurse, when he was seeking help for an injured companion, Mr L. Robinson of Te Marua, in the Rimutakas last February. After the Hutt Police and the Free Ambulance had been notified Sister Meijer returned with Mr Wyeth through rugged hill country to dress the wounds of the injured man, who had been hit by a ricocheting bullet. She then walked out of the bush to her home, a distance of about 2 miles, for food and coffee for the two men. Meanwhile ambulance men arrived on the scene, after cutting a ¼-mile track through the bush for their Landrover and then having to follow the bed of a stream on foot for about 2 miles. All the necessary first aid had been administered by Sister Meijer, but they had the task of getting the man out. Mr B. Lahman, an ambulance man, said, “We could carry him only about 10 ft at a time. Then we had to stop and carve out a track. We all took turns, but progress was very slow and our patient was in terrible pain at that stage.”

Sister Meijer, returning with food, met the party coming down a ravine. She administered morphine to the patient. About a mile from the road the first of the Hutt Tramping Club members arrived and by the time the road was reached about 20 men were assisting. The patient was taken to the Hutt Hospital, where he was operated on. Mr Lahman said that he couldn't pay too high a tribute to Mrs Meijer, “She was simply terrific.” Sister Meijer, described by the Hutt Police as a ‘Flōrence Nightingale’, later said that although she had attended people injured in Rimutaka road accidents this was her “first real big bush job”.