While taking his dog for a walk in the Kaimai Ranges on Sunday, August 28, Zac Jacobs - a Tauranga Boys' College student - encountered a chap and his kids pretty stressed, as his wife had gone for a run some hours earlier on a bush track and hadn't returned.
Zac, realising the seriousness of the situation with the jogger in light clothing and daylight running out fast, he actioned a search and rescue operation.
Knowing search and rescue personnel were still going to be some time away, Zac asked his neighbour - a local hunter - to assist him. They arrived back at the bush to find the joggers husband and kids the only ones there. Zac decided it best to go to the area the jogger's husband had identified as the area where she had accidentally followed a side track to nowhere.
They hiked pretty quickly along the main track to this area 40 minutes away hoping to locate her before dark. Zac's tracking skills proved very effective, at times down on his knees with a torch looking for the smallest of details.
Getting pretty gloomy in the bush, unable to fi nd more footprints and more than half a kilometre from the track they decided to go back to the main track to meet up with search and rescue. As they headed up a ridge, Zac encouraged the hunter to give out another loud whistle to which they hear a woman's voice call back.
The lady, in good spirits, had done the right thing when lost by hunkering down by a stream and was building a shelter with Ponga fronds. Zac, the hunter and the lady made their way back through thick bush to the track to meet search and rescue. Although well short of correct ‘lost person' protocol, Zac ran a successful search and rescue operation. Not bad for a school boy.

M Kirkham, the hunter.