A man who drew both the ire and admiration of thousands of social media users when a video of him jumping into surging flood waters at a West Auckland dam went viral, has finally been located after a radio station's manhunt.
In the video, the man can be seen climbing from the safety barrier at the Lower Nihotupu Dam all the way down to the water's edge - a traverse of what appears to be about 15 to 20 metres.
Once close to the water, which he looked to have climbed down to using a makeshift rope, he then launched himself in on top of a rubber tube.
Auckland-based station George FM put out a plea with its listeners yesterday, calling on anyone who knew him or anything about him to come forward and give them his contact details so they could speak to him on air.
George FM Breakfast host Clint Roberts said a couple of people had texted in to say they work with the man, before one person made contact to say the man's name was Max Dixon, and that he was a builder's apprentice.
And it wasn't long until they managed to get in contact with him - and got the chance to ask just why he did it.
"It was, like, all good eh - sort of an adrenaline rush," he said of the ride, which was posted on Facebook on Sunday night.
Quizzed on why he didn't appear to have taken many real safety precautions, Mr Dixon seemed to take offence at the question.
"I had a helmet and a life jacket on and, like, I sussed out where [the dam] went out to beforehand - and it was, like, all good eh. I ended up in a river with a few big rapids - so it was mean, eh."
Roberts then asked Mr Dixon if he was aware that news outlets across New Zealand were interested in speaking to him - and he was surprised, as he revealed he "doesn't even have Facebook" to track how big the video of him was becoming.
"You don't have Facebook? You are on Facebook. You are the biggest video on Facebook today," Roberts said.
"Actually?" Mr Dixon replied, genuinely incredulous.
"You have no idea, do you? Because we thought you were doing this to get famous. We thought you were doing this so you could blow up your own Facebook page - is that not the reason you did it?"
"Nah, bro," Mr Dixon said. "It was just pretty mean. Don't worry, it was safe as."
The video has received more than 80,000 and 678 shares in just over a day.
Newshub.
