8 Oct 2012

Wave engulfs whitebaiter on point of rescue

8:19 pm on 8 October 2012

Rescuers came agonisingly close to pulling a whitebaiter from the water after he was washed out to sea from the mouth of Canterbury's Rakaia River.

Victor Boraman, 21, was whitebaiting with two friends when he was swept into the sea about 7pm on Sunday.

Sergeant Ryan O'Rourke said a helicopter spotted the man when he had been in the sea for some 45 minutes and managed to lower a rescuer on a winch to him, but a large wave suddenly sucked the man under.

"They would see him and then he'd pop up somewhere else 20 or 30 metres away and they just couldn't get the machine over top of him to winch," he said.

"Then he popped up and they were able to get near him, and began winching down.

"The person on the winch could see that he wasn't going to get to him, and unhooked the rescue tube to throw it to him, but didn't get an opportunity to throw it to him before he was hit by a massive wave and sucked under."

Mr O'Rourke says it was extremely distressing for rescuers to come so close, only to be thwarted at the last minute.

Air and shoreline searches continued on Monday.