Updated 13.26 | Published 13.20
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full screen The place where the complicated rescue operation took place, along the Franklin River in Australian Tasmania. Photo: Tasmania Police Via AFP/TT
A 69-year-old man has had to have his leg amputated after he got stuck between boulders during a paddling trip in Australia.
The man, a tourist from Lithuania, was white-water rafting in Tasmania’s Franklin River when his leg suddenly got stuck in a crevice in a particularly dangerous part of the river. He managed to alert the authorities, but the remoteness of the site and the rapidity of the rapids complicated the rescue effort.
After 20 hours of fruitless attempts to free the man, who was in water from the waist down, he began to get severely hypothermic and feel progressively worse. In consultation with the man, the decision was then made to amputate his leg, in the middle of the roaring rapids.
“This rescue was an extremely challenging and technical operation,” police spokesman Doug Oosterloo said in a statement.
“Everything was done to free the man before the difficult decision to amputate his leg was made.”
After the amputation, the man was flown on Saturday to hospital in Hobart, the capital of the state of Tasmania. His condition remains critical, the police say.