John Funnell, 65, is one of the most well-known SAR pilot’s in New Zealand. Although today he spends his time managing a hotel, a cattle farm and even a bit of bee keeping, back in the day he saved thousands of lives with 19 000 hours of flight time under his belt. Some of his past employers included Ivan Warmington from Wanganui Aero Club, John Harding from WAW and Berrick Dalcombe when he did his agriculture pilot training.

Although he always maintains that he was just the pilot in a spectacular team, his work earned him a NZ and MBE medal of bravery. He recounted his adventures in his book, Rescue Pilot, which was released last week. A few of his stories include being part of the relief team for the 2004 Banda Aceh tsunami in Indonesia.

“I’ll never forget the smell of death there. It was horrific.”

As reported by NZ Herald, one of his best known rescues was the 800km mercy mission to the Antarctic Campbell Island in aid of a MetService employee who had been attacked by a shark. The man was fortunate enough to only have lost an arm.

In his early days, there was no flight nurse or flight paramedic on board and he created what he called the John Funnell triage system. Funnel reports that if a patient was lying on the ground, not moving but with a pulse that they were in danger and needed immediate care. The patients who were yelling and walking around would be okay.