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Source: ONE News
A 24-year-old tourist has a shattered leg after being hit by falling rocks at Franz Josef Glacier.
Police say the Canadian woman and her partner read warning signs at the glacier terminal but jumped the barriers anyway and were hit by a rock slide on Monday morning.
They climbed down to where the river came out of the glacier terminal and were caught in a rock slide.
Constable Bill Parker says her male companion, a New Zealander, escaped with scratching and bruising to the chest.
Parker says a couple of inches closer and the rocks would have hit his skull and the outcome could have been very different.
The rock slides were a regular occurrence on the glacier and this served as another warning.
"I don't think it was a slide that would have buried them, but if the man had been a couple of inches back the rock would have smacked him in the skull and killed him. So it's just down to luck at the end of the day."
The man walked out and the woman was flown to Franz Josef before being transferred to St John's ambulance and transported to Grey Base hospital.
In January 2009 two Melbourne brothers were killed after ignoring warning signs on Fox Glacier to pose for pictures.
Ashish and Akshay Miranda were crushed by an icefall having stepped over a safety rope and waded through a stream to reach the glacier terminal.
In December the Department of Conservation told a coroner's
enquiry its staff were powerless when tourists chose to endanger
themselves.
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