Mr McFarlane (48) was hunting fallow deer with his son Blake and his friend Kyle Adams, both 15, in the hills behind Beaumont on February 8 when the ground underneath him caved in and he tumbled about 10m into a ravine.
His leg was badly cut in the fall and he lost six teeth.
"I don't know if I was knocked out but I must have looked dead because I remember Blake screaming and screaming.
"I just yelled out, 'I'm alive, I'm alive,' and told him to run to where he could get cellphone coverage."
That was about noon.
It only took Blake 10 minutes to reach cellphone coverage, but the group was in a heavily bushed area and, despite instructions and Blake moving to a clearing and taking off most of his clothes so he could be seen more easily, a rescue helicopter could not spot him.
Back in the ravine, his father, a postal worker, had tied up his bleeding wounds with toilet paper, bits of cloth and bootlaces and hobbled 100m to a nearby clearing.
He and Kyle then tried to set off a flare they carried in their pack, but its smoke withered away without being spotted.
They then built a small controlled fire in a clearing and put some greenery on it to create smoke, which was eventually spotted by the helicopter at 4pm.
"We knew it was dangerous to do the fire thing, but we needed to do something. And what a sound that chopper was."
A paramedic lowered to Mr McFarlane administered morphine while the helicopter returned to Dunedin to refuel before going back to retrieve the group.
Mr McFarlane was flown to Dunedin Hospital where he had surgery to remove dead flesh around his wound.
Yesterday, a grateful Mr McFarlane was counting his blessings and not taking any chances with the future.
"I'm just one lucky [man], I suppose. I truly believe I could have died out there if I was more seriously injured. If that ever happens to us again, we'll be ready for it, we'll be better prepared."
He was grateful to his rescuers and recommended everyone who went into the backcountry should take a locator beacon.
"I tell you it will be the first thing I'll be buying. You think Beaumont: it's bushy, it's like a backblock, but we could have saved a whole lot of flying around if we had one of those things.
"It takes something like this to happen to buck your ideas up."
The accident, however, has not put him off hunting.
"I've got a block booked for next month, but I don't think I'll be up to it so that's a bit of a bugger."
