Fark! Christchurch river accident

[russd7]

Possibly this dude had to contend with debris and murky fast flowing water wiht large waves and surges - which may well have affected his view of his downstream options..possibly...

add to that the fact that the waimak is slightly more than 20m wide, i would think he possibly took the right course of action

[Tazz]

Yesterday the river was in flood. If you'd have seen it, you'd not be saying that.

If he'd let go, he'd be living in the Chathams now.

Either that or struck by a tree, or dragged under in an eddy, or caught on tree roots and drowned trying to get to the bank, or maybe he'd would have made it in all his leathers and boots to the bank, ripped open his jacket to let his chest hairs blow in the wind and had a little ray of sunshine beam down on him as an eagle flew overhead and gave a wink.

Everyone is a hero looking these situations lol. Just good the dude survived.

Fanged back up home today and the rivers were still in full swing (or near on). Impressive volume of water.

And yeah from the report the Ashley dude messed up =(

[unstuck]

I saw the river going through Taumarunui yesterday about 1.5x its size. Id still rather try my luck swimming sideways for a km rather than freeze for 40 minutes.

When I was about 8-10 I lived on a farm which backed onto a river popular with white water rafters. It was about 20m wide and fast flowing (not storm fast but I was young). To swim across the river (to get to the cliff to jump), we would walk about 100m up the river bank then point straight across and swim hard for 5 minutes. By the time I reach the bank I'm at the cliff.

No river is going to hold you in the middle of it.

How many south island rivers you tried swimming in? A lot of the rivers down here are completely different to the rivers in the north island and do some crazy shit when in flood due to the shifting gravel. Try it sometime, its a hoot. Especially if your inside a 4x4 thats floating along, slowly filling with water.

[Str8 Jacket]

I'm not sure why we're arguing if he took the right actions or not, he's alive so I am guessing that he did.....

[mikeey01]

Lucky, very lucky man!

On a different note...
Another Harley that hates getting wet so it spat rider off?

[Swoop]

Today's guy was a victim of someone else's folly.

The Harley Davidson engineer who designed the brakes?

(surprised it hadn't already been mentioned...)

[MD]

Lucky, very lucky man!

On a different note...
Another Harley that hates getting wet so it spat rider off?

Those bikes are not water cooled. The bike followed it's design brief.

[Paul in NZ]

The Harley Davidson engineer who designed the brakes?

(surprised it hadn't already been mentioned...)

Looks like the brakes and the rider did a good job stopping in time to avoid a random truck leaping in front of them. ie not really much frontal impact to the bike. He just fell through the guard rail where the truck had busted it.

IMHO he did well to stop and made the right decision to hold onto the tree. He was wearing bike leathers, helmet, gloves and back pack. By the time he shrugged out of the back pack and glove and ditched the pack he would have already been running out of energy and may not have made it. The river banks there are all gravel and often crumbly - not easy to clamber out.

[russd7]

i guess the adage that motorcycle boots are not made for walking could be true for swimming as well

[Asher]

I traveled over the SH1 bridge not too long after the accident and never realised it was a rider that ended up in the drink. I was going to take a photo of the river because i had never seen it that big before.
The guy did well hang onto a tree.
For the northern folk who dont know how big the river gets:




Thats the same volume as an olympic swimming each second...

[russd7]

I traveled over the SH1 bridge not too long after the accident and never realised it was a rider that ended up in the drink. I was going to take a photo of the river because i had never seen it that big before.
The guy did well hang onto a tree.
For the northern folk who dont know how big the river gets:


Thats the same volume as an olympic swimming each second...

pfft, still only a baby river, whats awesome is when ya see the Rakaia or the Waitaki lapping the bottom of their respective bridges.

[Road kill]

pfft, still only a baby river, whats awesome is when ya see the Rakaia or the Waitaki lapping the bottom of their respective bridges.

That's nothin' mate,,some of these fuckers could swim it with a hand tied behind their backs an not get wet.

You just ask em'.

[Dave-]

pfft, still only a baby river, whats awesome is when ya see the Rakaia or the Waitaki lapping the bottom of their respective bridges.

Pfft, that's fuckin' nothing mate, you should see the pacific ocean!