A Palmerston hunter used his T shirt and duct tape as a tourniquet before hobbling more than 200m to meet his rescuers after impaling his leg on a stick in the Maungatua Range.
Luke Direen was pig hunting off Grainger Rd, near Outram, when he fell and impaled his leg on the stick about 10.30am yesterday.
''I slipped on a dead flax bush and just arsed over and a stick went into my leg,'' he said casually after being discharged from Dunedin Hospital yesterday afternoon.
''It went three inches [7.6cm] into my calf muscle.
''I pulled it out - apparently it's not a good thing to do. You are supposed to leave it in there.
''I didn't really think about about that. It wasn't on the top of the to do list.''
It left a wound big enough that a paramedic ''could put two index fingers inside my leg''.
The pain was immediate, he said.
''The pain was pretty good - it was right up there.''
He contacted police with his cellphone to report the accident and then applied his own form of first aid.
Mr Direen did not have a first aid kit with him, as ''I didn't take my dogs with me'', so he used his T shirt as a tourniquet, applied further pressure with duct tape and used his rifle as a crutch as he hobbled back towards the track more than 200m away.
Emergency services arrived within about 30 minutes of the fall and he was winched out by the Otago Regional Rescue Helicopter at 12.25pm.
''They were awesome about everything and the speed they did everything with is unreal,'' he said.
Constable Amie Manning said Mr Direen had ''done everything right''.
''There's nothing else he could have done to make it any better,'' she said.
''He was very well prepared, wearing fluoro gear, had a cellphone, enough food ... a locator beacon and GPS.''
He was in ''good spirits'' when emergency services arrived despite the ''stab wound'' in his leg, she said.
Mr Direen said despite initial concerns he would need surgery, a doctor had ''stitched my leg and a couple of tendons'' and he planned to return to Grainger Rd with his ''mum and a mate'' to get his truck yesterday afternoon.
It was a tale he expected to hear about at the pub.
''My mates are going to give me a bit of stick for it,'' he said, with a laugh.
