{"id":46977,"date":"2026-05-29T23:10:30","date_gmt":"2026-05-29T21:10:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/media\/accidents\/helicopter-search-operation-underway-for-man-presumed-drowned-on-birthday-hazelmere-kzn\/"},"modified":"2026-05-29T23:10:30","modified_gmt":"2026-05-29T21:10:30","slug":"helicopter-search-operation-underway-for-man-presumed-drowned-on-birthday-hazelmere-kzn","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/media\/accidents\/helicopter-search-operation-underway-for-man-presumed-drowned-on-birthday-hazelmere-kzn\/","title":{"rendered":"Helicopter Search Operation Underway for Man Presumed Drowned on Birthday: Hazelmere &#8211; KZN"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>At 16:25 on Friday, the Reaction Unit South Africa (RUSA) Helicopter ZS-HXM took off from the helipad to initiate a Search Operation for a 54-year-old male who is presumed to have drowned at Hazelmere Dam during his 54th birthday celebration.<\/p>\n<p>Currently, Metro Police and Reaction Officers are on the scene, conducting a Search &amp; Rescue Operation. Witnesses reported that the man and his friends were celebrating his birthday at the dam when he attempted to swim to a jet-ski that had been blown away by strong winds. He went underwater and did not resurface.<\/p>\n<p>Additional information reveals that the missing individual is a former Navy Officer and businessman.<\/p>\n<p>Further updates will be provided&#8230;.<\/p>\n<hr>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.arrivealive.co.za\/news.aspx?s=1&#038;i=77501&#038;page=helicopter-search-operation-underway-for-man-presumed-drowned-on-birthday-hazelmere-kzn\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Read more on Arrive Alive <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>At 16:25 on Friday, the Reaction Unit South Africa (RUSA) Helicopter ZS-HXM took off from the helipad to initiate a Search Operation for a 54-year-old male who is presumed to have drowned at Hazelmere Dam during his 54th birthday celebration. Currently, Metro Police and Reaction Officers are on the scene, conducting a Search &amp; Rescue [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":46978,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.arrivealive.co.za\/\/ckfinder\/userfiles\/images\/708926460_1435897275230694_5083973708276483125_n.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2149],"tags":[66,2152],"class_list":["post-46977","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-accidents","tag-kwazulu-natal","tag-kzn"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.arrivealive.co.za\/\/ckfinder\/userfiles\/images\/708926460_1435897275230694_5083973708276483125_n.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/media\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46977","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/media\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/media\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/media\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/media\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46977"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/media\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46977\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/media\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/46978"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/media\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46977"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/media\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=46977"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/media\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=46977"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}