Rescue chopper has special place in one rider's heart

Otago Daily Times

08-05-2025

Southland's Bruce Winter, whose wife and son have both needed to use the Otago Southland Rescue Helicopter following heart attacks, is pictured before today's Chopper Bike Ride, an annual fundraiser for Lakes District Air Rescue Trust (LDART). He is with (from left) Gemma and Richie McCaw, LDART chairman Jules Tapper, broadcaster Paddy Gower and Westpac NZ Otago Southland regional manager Phil Taylor. PHOTO: TRACEY ROXBURGH
You can bet Southlander Bruce Winter's wife and eldest son will not be too far from his thoughts during a gruelling 230km bike ride today.
Mr Winter, 69, is one of about 100 cyclists — including at least four former Olympians — taking part in this year's Chopper Bike Ride from Queenstown to Invercargill, a fundraiser for the annual Westpac Chopper Appeal.
The riders are aiming to raise a record $150,000 for the Lakes District Air Rescue Trust to support the Otago Southland Rescue Helicopter Service, which last year flew 2097 missions.
Mr Winter, who was a road cyclist for 10 years and a keen mountain biker, said this would be his sixth edition of the Chopper Bike Ride, an event to which he had previously donated but began participating in after his wife, Catherine, needed the rescue helicopter in 2016.
Sheep farming at the time at Spar Bush, Mrs Winter, then aged 54, had spent a morning winding up electric fences. By 3pm that afternoon she complained of a sore arm, believing she had pulled a muscle.
"She was actually starting to have a heart attack then," he said.
Unaware, Mr Winter headed out again and returned home just before 6pm and immediately knew "something wasn't right".
She was taken by ambulance to Southland Hospital — a rescue helicopter happened to be there, having been brought in for another patient.
"But Catherine took precedence, so they flew her to Dunedin ... it's only a 48-minute flight from Invercargill to the top of Dunedin Hospital. She landed on the roof, they took her down and [put a stent in] straight away."
Then last July, their son Andrew, then aged 36, also needed a life-saving flight to Dunedin after he confused a heart attack for pneumonia.
The Cromwell-based diesel mechanic thought about driving to Clyde Hospital, but his boss encouraged him to go to the medical centre instead.
"So he rang the medical centre and they sent an ambulance."
After a couple of hours in Clyde, the call was made to the rescue helicopter, which had to land south of Alexandra due to an inversion layer.
By the time his parents got to Dunedin, Andrew had a stent inserted and was "good as gold".
Now living near Forest Hill, Mr Winter said one of the helicopter flight paths from Queenstown passed directly overhead. Noting the regularity with which that happened, he said he was acutely aware of the service's importance.
Riders in today's event include former All Blacks captain and Westpac NZ ambassador Richie McCaw, 2012 Olympic gold medal-winning rower Nathan Cohen, Black Sticks great Gemma McCaw and her former team-mate, Diana Te Awa, Paralympic tandem sighted pilot Laura Thompson, former Olympic cyclist Glenn McLeay and broadcaster Paddy Gower.
While they would spend 12 hours in the saddle, stopping at local schools along the route, a smaller group of riders including Westpac NZ institutional and business banking managing director Reuben Tucker, have taken the fundraising to a new level — riding 800km from Nelson to join the start of the Chopper Bike Ride in Queenstown.
By last night, just over $75,000 had been donated through the Westpac Chopper Appeal Givealittle page.
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