'Incredibly brave' girl survives being impaled on branch on Rakino Island

Wednesday, 10 January 2018

A young girl impaled by a branch on an island off the coast of Auckland has been flown to hospital in a serious condition.

She had been running down a track on Rakino Island when she tripped and landed with a 5cm-wide branch through her calf, said intensive care paramedic Chris Deacon.

Deacon arrived at the scene with the Westpac Rescue Helicopter at around 2.20pm.

'She was an incredibly brave little girl,' he said. 'It looked pretty gory to me and she barely even whimpered.'

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Deacon helped chop through the branch, which would later be surgically removed from the girl's leg at Starship hospital.

'The wound will have to be surgically cleaned too, 'cause there'll be all sorts of bacteria and dirt and maybe even beetles in there — anything that was on the branch,' he said.

The incident happened near a Rakino beach, which the girl was visiting with her family.

Deacon said the branch she fell onto had been recently pruned back and had a jagged end point.