died at the scene, police said.<\/a><\/p>\n“It’s pretty heartbreaking,” ex-partner Natalie Bould told the\u00a0New Zealand Herald.<\/i><\/p>\n
Bould said she had spoken with Huelsmann’s family, who had asked for privacy.<\/p>\n
“[They’re] mourning and they want to remain private.”<\/p>\n
Huelsmann, 57, had three children and three grandchildren, Bould said. He was a clinical psychologist and practised across Wellington.<\/p>\n
Huelsmann specialised in sports psychology and helped write a book,\u00a0ACT in Sport: Improve Performance through Mindfulness, Acceptance, and Commitment<\/i>.<\/p>\n
New Zealand women’s underwater hockey coach Rebecca Brosnan said Huelsmann’s psychological training of both men’s and women’s teams was a key part in them winning the 2018 World Championships.<\/p>\n
High jump bronze medallist Imogen Skelton credited Heulsmann with teaching her that “training the mind is just as important as training the body” to succeed in sport.<\/p>\n
He had been in New Zealand “for a long time” after moving from Germany, Bould said.<\/p>\n
Huelsmann was once national psychology advisor for ACC, according to a social media post from Accuro Health Insurance.<\/p>\n
Huelsmann lived in New Zealand for at least 20 years, working in child and adolescent mental health as well as pain and injury rehabilitation.<\/p>\n
Bould said he was a keen tramper and had a hiking partner with him when he died.<\/p>\n
Police were called to a report a person was critically injured on the mountain about 4pm on Sunday.<\/p>\n
Police extended their condolences to Huelsmann’s family and friends.<\/p>\n
Police Search and Rescue, assisted by the Taranaki Rescue Helicopter Trust team and members of the Taranaki Alpine Cliff Rescue team, worked to recover Huelsmann’s body.<\/p>\n
Inquiries into the incident were ongoing, but police had completed their inquiries on behalf of the Coroner who would release their findings “in due course”, a police spokeswoman said.<\/p>\n
Taranaki Alpine Cliff Rescue member Jeremy Beckers flew to the incident by rescue helicopter just after sunset on Sunday.<\/p>\n
“Our job was to get the gentleman off who had been killed,” Beckers said.<\/p>\n
Beckers understood Huelsmann was travelling with someone else when he was struck from above by the boulder.<\/p>\n
“He was hit by a large rock … they come down pretty hard when they fall,” Beckers said.<\/p>\n
He appeared to have been killed by the boulder on the main route towards the summit, around 2000m up.<\/p>\n
Beckers said most alpine people would be aware of the risk of rocks and ice falling on Mt Taranaki.<\/p>\n
Department of Conservation Taranaki operations manager Gareth Hopkins said the fatality occurred at the North Ridge of Mt Taranaki Summit Track.<\/p>\n
“The death of the tramper yesterday is a reminder of the inherent risks of recreation in the alpine environment. People planning to visit Taranaki Maunga and undertake these activities need to understand the danger the mountain presents.<\/p>\n
“Our condolences go to those impacted by yesterday’s incident,” Hopkins said.<\/p>\n
Taranaki Mountain Shuttles won’t operate today and Wednesday while the company observes a r\u0101hui “out of respect and cultural protocol” after the death.<\/p>\n
The bus company said the r\u0101hui would last two days “or as long as directed”.<\/p>\n
*\u00a0This story first appeared in the<\/i>\u00a0New Zealand Herald.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Lower Hutt man Christoph Huelsmann, killed by a boulder on Mt Taranaki, leaves behind three grandchildren and is remembered as a keen tramper. Loose scree from the mountain slopes dislodged a large boulder, striking Huelsmann who\u00a0died at the scene, police said. “It’s pretty heartbreaking,” ex-partner Natalie Bould told the\u00a0New Zealand Herald. Bould said she had […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":4109,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[222,174],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4108","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-latest-news","category-nz-news"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4108","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4108"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4108\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4110,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4108\/revisions\/4110"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4109"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4108"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4108"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4108"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}