A fam­i­ly of lo­cal Tik­Tok­ers are prais­ing the ef­forts of the po­lice, fire of­fi­cers and the Hunters Search and Res­cue Team for res­cu­ing them af­ter they got lost dur­ing a hike near Mount St Bene­dict on Sat­ur­day.

The fam­i­ly con­sist­ed of two chil­dren both un­der the age of ten.

A state­ment from the TTPS yes­ter­day said the fam­i­ly con­tact­ed the po­lice’s E999 com­mand cen­tre at 5.30 pm on Sat­ur­day, and of­fi­cers of the North­ern Di­vi­sion Op­er­a­tional Cen­tre were no­ti­fied.

The po­lice ser­vice’s air sup­port unit and of­fi­cers of the Fire Ser­vice were al­so con­tact­ed.

Po­lice said the fam­i­ly re­port­ed that around 4.40 pm, they start­ed a hike along the north­ern range close to the pop­u­lar flag site near the Mount. On their way back they were un­able to find a way out.

“In­sps Ram­pal­lard and Beepot, of­fi­cers of the Air Sup­port Unit and fire sub-of­fi­cers John-Bap­tiste Reid and fire of­fi­cers from the Tu­na­puna Fire Sta­tion for­mu­lat­ed a search and res­cue plan. While pi­lot­ing a drone over the moun­tain­ous ter­rain, Ram­pal­lard spot­ted the fam­i­ly in a forest­ed area. The in­for­ma­tion was then down­loaded from the drone to pin­point the ex­act lo­ca­tion of the hik­ers, who were res­cued at 9.18 pm by a team con­sist­ing of the fire ser­vice and the Hunters Search and Res­cue Team,” the re­lease stat­ed.

The fam­i­ly was re­unit­ed with rel­a­tives.

The fam­i­ly, who are Tik­Tok­ers by the name “Pre­ston & Juli­et Mom” lat­er post­ed about their ex­pe­ri­ence.

“We got lost. When we re­alised we took the wrong path down and it was get­ting dark quick­ly we called 999 around 6.30 af­ter get­ting a some­what flat area to sit with the kids. While wait­ing for help to ar­rive Mr Pre­ston (re­fer­ring to one of the chil­dren) de­cid­ed he need­ed a snooze. Vishal gave up his t-shirt as Pre­ston need­ed some ex­tra warmth while he was asleep.

“Ap­par­ent­ly the area is known for mapepire snakes so glad we didn’t en­counter any of these poi­so­nous crea­tures as they are eas­i­ly ag­i­tat­ed. Every­one was on the phone with us every ten min­utes. Silent­ly pray­ing in my head. Hop­ing they ar­rive soon I wasn’t wor­ried about my­self but the kids be­ing un­com­fort­able and Juli­et (the sec­ond child) was get­ting hun­gry,” the post added.

The fam­i­ly mem­bers said they were re­lieved to be res­cued by 8.44 pm.

“Start­ing the trek back down with all the help of these amaz­ing peo­ple we are grate­ful to have met. Spe­cial thank you to po­lice ser­vices, fire­fight­ers, Hunters Search and Res­cue and the res­i­dents of the area that as­sist­ed.” —RHON­DOR DOWLAT