Hero rescued

HERALD: [Rescued from the sea after three days] Mr Hewitt was last night recovering in Wellington Hospital after his ordeal, which rescuers have called a miracle of endurance and inner strength: "To spend three days in the open water, that's a lot of courage and commitment. I've been involved in a number of search and rescues and unfortunately they always turn into search and recovery [said the naval officer in charge of the search team]."

It appeared he had spent the whole time keeping himself afloat ... with only his dive suit and catchbag, having discarded his diving equipment. He kept himself alive by eating the kit from his catch bag. He'd been fishing and had caught a couple of crayfish and kina, and he'd cracked those open and eaten them raw to keep himself going for the three nights at sea."

Robert Hewitt is a legend, and an inspiration. Alone, with only himself and his own ingenuity to call on in his grim battle of man against nature, his courage, calm, patience and will won out.

When the hero of Operation Desert Storm, General Norman Schwarzkopf, was asked about the main problem in America he replied: “Ethics. People talk about a leadership crisis... It's never a competence problem. It's an ethical, moral crisis. It's a problem of character.” Robert Hewitt has character in spades; and he demonstrates where ethics begins -- with the choice to live -- and showed he had all the virtues necessary to make that choice real.

Robert Hewitt is no quiche-eater. He is a real man, the epitome of the bloke who the gracious Maddox calls "the kind of men who perpetuate our species." Read Maddox's tribute to real men here. It's a riot. Hewitt would enjoy it, especially perhaps the story of Aron Ralston.

LINKS: Navy training, raw kina and crayfish key to Hewitt's survival - NZ Herald
A tribute to real men - Maddox