In 35 years of operating diggers, Paul Shields, of Haast, had never thought he would be asked to shift a glacier.
But on Thursday night, moving up to 100 tonnes of ice was all he was contemplating as dozens of Fox Glacier volunteers worked to retrieve the bodies of Melbourne brothers Ashish (24) and Akshay (22) Miranda.
Mr Shields, who works for John Nolan, of Haast, has been at Fox Glacier for a month building a road to the Department of Conservation car park after the former road was washed out in a flood in November.
He completed that job yesterday.
Mr Shields was working in Mr Nolan's Komatsu PC 200 machine on Thursday and did not hear or see the ice fall that trapped the two tourists.
"I was ready to knock off at 5pm and one of the Doc workers told me to make my way up to the glacier. He said maybe they needed me, maybe they didn't.
"It took me about an hour of boulder bashing. It's hard [terrain]; really tough going."
When he saw the amount of ice, he knew it was unlikely the two men would have survived.
"It was a lot of ice and big solid blocks, and some of those were so hard the bucket would only just scratch it," he recalled.
After about 15 minutes of digging, he found a shoe and about 4m into the ice fall, the searchers were able to recover Ashish, a Boeing aerospace engineer.
However, police and Doc workers deemed it too dangerous for Mr Shields to continue in his attempt to retrieve Akshay, a student, who yesterday remained entombed in the ice and is presumed dead.
Conditions remained extremely dangerous at the site yesterday and Mr Shields said he did not think any further digging would be necessary.
"I think when it rains and the river swells and melts the ice, the second body will show up pretty quickly," Mr Shields said.
He agreed with police and Doc it was not safe to continue digging and he was in danger of becoming trapped himself.
The digger had a cage on it but that would not have protected him had another large block of ice fallen, he said.
But he did not feel anxious or fearful during his dangerous mission.
"When you get under there [the glacier] you think, `My God'. It's all cracked and looking like it was ready to fall out . . .
"They were a good team to work with. I felt very comfortable working with Doc and the police because they didn't expect you to do more than you should.
"I was pleased when they said it was a safety issue and to come out."
