NZMTBRally

@bonfire: ahahahah yes, good old NZ pesos ! More or less, depending on the change rates, you can get lucky :D

An a non-kiwi (like myself) you will probably find this hard to believe, but here in NZ, for any genuine accident (no matter how it was caused - be that at work, in competitive sport, at home, or at leisure) there is zero cost to the individual involved: That means no cost from start to finish - nothing for the rescue (including a helicopter or ambulance)and no cost for the emergency hospital care and after-treatment, even including after-care, rehab, physio, and psych treatment if you need it. Furthermore, if you need to take time off work and lose income, you are fairly compensated for that too. Remarkably, this even includes tourists and visitors as well as NZ residents. At a high level, this is one of the reasons why there are very few ambulance chasers and pretty much no compensation culture at all - because there's no 'net financial loss' to an individual and therefore technically nothing to legally be compensated for. It is such an amazing scheme which is paid for by a very modest national levy on all employers, from large companies to the self-employed. Regarding the heli-lift itself, this is provided by the local heli rescue organisation which is technically a public charity, and accepts donations from the general public as well as from the government. As organisers of the event, we will make a voluntary donation to the heli rescue service (regardless of if we use them or not - this is definitely not a pay-per-use kind of service!). Professional Doctors and paramedics on the scene first, were all there working the event as volunteers, just for the record. As far as we are aware, the only cost to the individual in a case such as Morgane's, would be the medical repatriation costs (in this case, back to France) but of course we are not party to Morgane's individual personal arrangements. What we do know is that she had plenty of offers to be taken care of here in Nelson from the local community when she came out of hospital, whilst she arranged for her trip home. But that's just standard Kiwi hospitality as far as I'm concerned. More details about all of this are on the event website here (click the Accident Insurance tab): https://nzmtbrally.com/travel/