15-year-old swimmer missing

At 5:30pm on Tuesday 23rd February 2010 a 15yr old male was swimming with his family upstream from the Old Waimakariri River Bridge. The male has failed to surface and police were called.

Of Duty Search and Rescue were close by and co-ordinated a search using boats from the Waimakariri Jet, Coastguard. A helicopter was also used in the search but was unable to locate the 15 year old person.

Police and search teams did not locate the male and the search has been called off for the night.

The police dive squad from Wellington has been deployed and will be resuming the search in the morning.