A man ran one hour through a South Island bush track for help after coming across missing woman Shelley Crooks.
Local resident Rachel says she was at her home in Punakaiki when conservation volunteer Alex turned up "pretty shaken" on her doorstep on Sunday evening. Rachel said he had raced to the nearest home he could find in order to find help for Ms Crooks.
Rachel says Alex was walking the Fox River Inland Pack Track when he came across Ms Crooks, who had been missing for six weeks.
"She wasn't in a good way and couldn't walk out, so he gave her his sleeping bag and flask and told her not to move and that he'd go get help.
"[He] then ran over an hour through the rest of the track down here to Fox River and turned up pretty shaken. We called 111. Search and Rescue had the helicopter out within the hour and they picked her up."
Thanks to the search efforts of police, Alex recognised Ms Crooks as soon as she said her name.
"A week or so ago a detective had brought some missing person posters out here, so we knew there was a lady missing and Alex had seen the posters too, so he knew who she was when she said her name," Rachel told Newshub.
She said it wasn't quite what you expect to happen on a Sunday evening.
"My partner and I were shocked when he came running up to us.
"We gave him a cuppa tea and called 111."
Rachel praised the work of Alex and of Search and Rescue.
During the search operation, Police described Ms Crooks as an experienced tramper, well-equipped to go off the grid for a number of days.
But her father, John Crooks, told media her lack of communication was unusual and he was concerned that she was not using her cell phone or bank account.
Ms Crooks had last been seen in Westport on 22 December.
The 36-year-old mother of four had told a friend she was hitchhicking to Opotiki, her home town in the Bay of Plenty.
Newshub has contacted police to confirm the sequence of events, but the officer in charge of the case was not available for comment.
Newshub.
