The Platform Collapse
On the day of the incident, a group of students from Tai Poutini Polytechnic in Greymouth visited the park. En route through the bush, a small group consisting of the polytechnic tutor, a Department of Conservation (DOC) officer and three students split off while the larger group of 17 students and another DOC officer continued towards the platform.
The larger group reached the platform first, and walked to the edge together at about 11:25 a.m. As several students jumped up and down, joking about the platform's stability, the platform toppled forward into the chasm. The DOC officer and 13 of the students were killed. Four students survived the collapse with serious injuries.
The second group reached the location shortly after the collapse. Having realised what happened, the remaining DOC officer and one of the students ran back to the start of the track for help, but on arriving they found that the keys were not in the group's vehicles. At this point, the DOC officer returned to the scene of the accident while the student ran along the road with a note containing information about the location of the accident. By 12:15 p.m., he had managed to phone the police at Greymouth.
The remoteness of the site made it difficult for medical services to assist the survivors. The first person to reach the scene was a Greymouth police constable, who arrived on foot two hours after the accident. Ambulances from Greymouth and Westport and helicopters from Christchurch arrived only later.
Read more about this topic: Cave Creek Disaster
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