Tourists save man from drowning in New Zealand

Tourists battled for more than an hour to keep a seriously injured Englishman from drowning, holding his head above water after he fell down a ravine into a creek in southern New Zealand.

The 70-year-old man, who had possibly suffered a stroke, fell about 16 feet down the ravine into Cave Creek near Porters Pass on New Zealand’s South Island.

Fellow passengers from the injured man’s tour bus were afraid to move him in case he had suffered a serious back injury, and his body remained submerged for an hour and a half.

The man was in a critical condition and unconscious when a rescue helicopter arrived.

The English tourist, whose identity was not immediately released, is in an intensive care ward at Christchurch Hospital.

An Englishwoman died last week after falling down a ravine in Arthur’s Pass National Park on South Island.

Porters Pass is some 260 miles south of the capital, Wellington.