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Routeburn Track survivor speaks about ordeal

Author
NZ Herald,
Publish Date
Fri, 26 Aug 2016, 12:51PM
Pavlina Pizova and Ondrej Petr (Supplied)

Routeburn Track survivor speaks about ordeal

Author
NZ Herald,
Publish Date
Fri, 26 Aug 2016, 12:51PM

The Czech tramper survived a month in a remote hut on the Routeburn Track is speaking publicly about her ordeal.

LISTEN ABOVE: Craig Ferguson from NZME and Queenstown local councillor spoke to Larry Williams 

Looking nervous and pale, she spoke softly in a heavy accent.

She said the ordeal was "harrowing".

She said her tramping partner falling and dying was a "tragic accident".

"After his death it took three nights in the open before I reached the safety of the hut. I was walking through waist deep snow and because of that the track lines were covered.

"My feet were frozen."

Because of her health and the weather, she thought it was best to "stay in a safe place".

"I made a few attempts to leave the hut but because of the weather and my physical conditions, it discouraged me from doing so."

She took the opportunity to send safety messages to "anyone travelling in the New Zealand mountains".

"We made a few mistakes with not leaving out intentions with somebody and not carrying a PLB [Personal Locator Beacon] and underestimating the conditions of the track."

Pizova waited for help after her tramping partner, Ondrej Petr, died in a fall on about July 27.

His body was today recoverd by Search and Rescue.

READ MORE: Body found on Routeburn Track

And it has now emerged a Facebook message helped spark the rescue mission for Pizova after her extraordinary ordeal.

A post from Facebook shows a message from a friend asking if anyone has seen her. It translates to say: "Hey, if wondering if anyone has any news. I'm trying to connect with Ondra and Peter Pavlin Pížová who are travelling around the South Island, last I heard they were going to a farm to Dunedin, but they have been silent for more than a month. They are driving a Toyota Estima 2000 and are both climbers. So if you have seen, let me know."

After watching her friend slip and die, Pizova spent three freezing nights in the open before stumbling across a warden's hut, next to the Lake Mackenzie hut along the Routeburn Track, where she waited to be rescued for about four weeks.

She used ashes to make a help sign in the snow, and fashioned snow shoes with sticks during the ordeal.

She smashed her way inside the locked hut. For the next four weeks she existed on meagre supplies of food, firewood and gas left behind by DoC workers.

She frantically tried to operate the hut radio but could not understand the English instructions.

Police say extreme and severe conditions, including heavy snow and the risk of avalanche, along with her minor injuries - frostbite and possible hypothermia - prevented Pizova from walking to safety.

No other trampers passed through the area; the track was officially closed for winter.

The alarm was finally raised this week by the Czech consulate after messages were noticed on social media from concerned friends and family back home.

She broke down in tears towards the end of her statement, which she read from a sheet of paper.

It was too harrowing to go into too many details about the ordeal she said.

“The conditions were extreme,” she said.

She was accompanied by Vladka Kennett, Consul for the Czech Republic.

Kennett said Pizova’s ordeal was unbelievable.

“I don’t understand it myself. I think she is a very strong woman. She just tried everything to survive. Tried to warm her feet up, keep moving her feet and hands. Put everything she could find on her feet and body.”

“It’s too difficult to describe emotions like that. She went up to the public hut and made a fire there. She made a few attempts as she said to walk out of the hut but because of the situation she was in her physical conditions and the snow, she always went back.

“She only made it a few hundred metres and went back.

“As you can imagine if you’re stuck somewhere for a month you would be very relieved, quite happy [to be rescued].”

The woman and her partner’s families were sticking together, she said.

The trampers were partners in New Zealand on a working holiday, she said.

Pizova was very resourceful.

“I give her enormous credit. She used whatever she could find.”

It was “very important” for Pizova to get her partner’s body back, and for the families.

The death had been referred to the Coroner.

A police spokesman accompanied the pair at the conference.

He expressed disappointment at “unhelpful comments” that were circulating about the ordeal.

Kennett said the comments were not affecting Pizova.

“She is such a brave person, she is above it all. She just ignores it all.”

Pizova was dressed in a thermal top and tramping pants, with tramping boots.

Pizova's thanked local police and search and rescue crews, and made special mention of Queenstown's honorary consul.

She said Vladka and Richard Kennett have helped on a personal basis, and has labelled them as heroes.

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