Leading the way in life-saving technology

A dramatic rescue in the Lake Roe area of the Dusky Track in Fiordland in February has highlighted the importance of life-saving technologies.

With the help of Venture Southland, The Southland Locator Beacon Charitable Trust is able to share in the success of so many rescues and lives saved throughout Southland, resulting in some pretty good stories to be told around the camp fire.

Former Mosgiel man, Scott Pauly was walking the track when he lost his footing and fell several metres into a narrow crevasse. If he had continued to slip just a further 8 metres, he would have fallen another 240metres to his death. He set off his digital locator beacon and within hours he was rescued by helicopter and flown to safety. Mr Pauly said had he not had the locator beacon, the outcome may have been fatal. The Southland Locator Beacon Charitable Trust has been in operation now for 14 years and currently hires beacons through 17 outlets around the lower South Island. Since 1996, seven deceased people have been recovered, 63 people categorized as ‘near death’ and hundreds of injured people have been rescued using the remote activation beacons throughout the South Island. The beacons are now accepted as essential life-saving technology. In 2008 over 1100 units were hired, with the number of beacon hires growing year-on-year.

For 13 years the Trust was able to run the unique Remotely Activated Locator Beacon, which was useful when a person lost the ability to manually activate the beacon themselves. This can be for a number of reasons such as loss of consciousness, inability to reach the beacon or in the worst case scenario, when someone has lost their life. In one instance, a man staying at a hut on the Kepler Track in Fiordland went out to watch a sunset but sadly suffered a massive heart attack and passed away. Luckily there were other people staying at the same hut and they raised the alarm when he did not return but it snowed heavily overnight and they could not find him in the morning. A helicopter was dispatched with the activation equipment onboard, the man’s beacon was remotely activated, and his body located after digging through two feet of snow.

At the beginning of this year there was a worldwide change to the new 406Mhz digital frequency locator beacon - a mandatory change which meant the beacons used by the trust for so long were no longer suitable as the frequency they transmitted on would not be monitored by the satellites. The trust is evaluating the development of remote activation technology for the new frequency and has secured the patent and part of the funding required to complete the re-development project to the export-ready stage.

Southland Locator Beacon Charitable Trust Chairman John Munro said none of this would have been possible without the help of Venture Southland and generous grants from the likes of the Community Trust of Southland. “Steve Canny and his team at Venture Southland have been there right from the early days mentoring, guiding, putting us in touch with the right people, the right funding sources, and helping out where ever they could. Without this in-depth mentoring, the trust certainly would not be in the position it is today.”