A Uruguayan visitor to Queenstown was forced to hang on to a tree for three hours in rain and wind until her cries for help were heard and emergency services rescued her on Thursday night.
Police say 29-year-old Patricia Flores, who had been living in Auckland for a year and was about to return to Uruguay, decided to make the 4-5 hour round-trip walk up to Ben Lomond (1748m), behind the Skyline gondola, about 3.30pm.
She told the Otago Daily Times last night she had been wearing jeans, a sweater, jacket, gloves and had a bag but no food or water and had lost her mobile phone three weeks earlier.
"I slipped on rocks and fell. I just grabbed anything and grabbed a tree that was hanging over the rock. I could put both feet on a rock below, but it was very slippery.
"I was feeling very tired and when I realised I was by myself, I felt very scared about what was happening."
Constable Julian Cahill, of Wakatipu search and rescue, said Ms Flores had lost the trail "a few hundred metres from the start of the walk and found herself among trees and bluffs".
"She wandered around trying to make her way up the hill through the trees but realised it was too late to carry on and started to make her way down, but was overtaken by darkness," he said.
Her calls for help were heard by people at the Lake View Holiday Park who called Queenstown police. Two constables found her, but were not equipped to reach her.
Const Cahill and two Alpine Cliff Rescue Team members abseiled down and lowered her to the bottom of the cliff. Emergency services personnel carried her out.
"It's challenging terrain and not to be underestimated. There are a lot of broken branches and trees to get over," Const Cahill said.
Once they reached a track, she was stretchered to a waiting police car and driven to the St John ambulance.
"She was very brave. She did the right thing," Const Cahill said. "She had to cling on to the tree for three hours and didn't complain at all."
The woman was taken to Lakes District Hospital and treated for leg cramping and assessed for hypothermia, before being discharged"I am very happy to be here and very thankful to the people who heard me, and the rescue team," Ms Flores said last night.
