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Diabetes New Zealand is a national charity that represents people with diabetes. Our vision is that all people with diabetes in New Zealand are the best managed in the world and have the best access to health care. Diabetes New Zealand and its affiliated societies offer support and education for people with diabetes.

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Type 1 adventurer dies in avalanche

Experienced mountain guide and heliski instructor, Jonathan Harvey Morgan, 38, a life-time adventurer with firm control of his Type 1 diabetes, died in a avalanche in the Ragged Ranges, near Methven, on Normal 0 false false false MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 Friday 14 August. Four tourists, two Australian men and a Japanese couple, with him survived.

It is the third fatal avalanche in the South Island in the past New Zealand  winter, after a snowboarder was killed near a ski area at Coronet Peak, Queenstown, earlier in August and Llynden Riethmuller, 61, Sydney, died in the Ragged Ranges in July.

Jonathan was one of two guides with Mr Riethmuller on the day he and a Melbourne father and son were buried by an avalanche. The father and son survived.

Before his death, Jonathan had been telling one survivor, Melbourne builder Dale Anderson, 39, how he helped recover Mr Riethmuller's body.Mr Anderson reported that Jonathan tried to ski out of the avalanche before he was hit and started tumbling.

Alpine Guides managing director Bryan Carter said Jonathan had yelled “avalanche” on his radio while being swept down the mountain. Westpac rescue helicopter staff and guides tried desperately to save Jonathan. Mr Anderson praised their guide's safety conscious ways. "It was just a freak accident.”

Jonathan had worked with Alpine Guides since 1995 and was an adventurous man. At 21 he climbed Mt Cook and then paraglided down. A mountain guide in summer he switched to ski-touring and heli-skiing each winter, dividing his life between New Zealand and Canada. He  reportedly did the second-ever ski descent from the high peak of Mt Cook via Zurbriggen Ridge.

Jonathan was featured in an article “Scaling the heights” in  diabetes magazine (Autumn 2004) in which he spoke about a sailing trip from South America to the mountainous Antarctic Peninsular before scaling polar peaks and skiing southern snowfields. He was reported then as saying: “Looking back I consider that I’m fortunate to have developed diabetes. I may not have always realised it but that’s where a lot of my drive has come from.”

Jonathan then said the impact of diabetes on his lifestyle was minimal. “All my colleagues have to be aware of the nutritional needs of their bodies and balance their food and their exercise, as well as getting enough rest. It’s just the same for me, except that I have to take insulin as well.”

Diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes at the age of six, Jonathan felt lucky to be born into a medical family. “My mother was a nurse and my father a doctor. “Everyone gave me a lot of support, and I was taught to be self-reliant almost from day one. I was doing all my tests and injecting myself within three weeks.”

Jonathan managed his diabetes well and tragically died by a force of nature, which no adventurer could control.

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The Don asks: ‘Can you see your feet?’

“If you can’t see your feet while leaning slightly backwards upright, you will die prematurely from Type 2 diabetes.”

So says Professor Sir Don Beaven, eminent Christchurch diabetologist. “Any extra fat can trigger Type 2 diabetes, our worst pandemic.”

An emeritus professor and co-patron of Diabetes New Zealand, Sir Don is one of more than 70 people holding a Distinguished Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit (DCNZM).

“Don” to his many friends, and “The Don” among New Zealand diabetes authorities, the newly created knight is no Don Quixote unrealistically “tilting against the windmills” fighting an imagined enemy – as in Miguel de Cervantes’ famous novel.

Diabetes can, and must be dealt to if the New Zealand health system is not overburdened with “our single most important disorder which is killing 12 people every day of the year.”

He says Diabetes New Zealand has emphasised and advocated for 10 years to the Ministry of Health, nurses and doctors that blood sugars over 5 lead to complications and loss of health and wellbeing. “However, we see no money allocated for specific campaigns by any politicians.”

Professor Sir Don says specific gut viruses trigger Type 1 diabetes in children with a 5% increase year on year.

In 1988, the year before he retired as clinician and researcher from the Christchurch Medical School, he saw the launch by a New Zealand Minister of Health of the first diabetes guidelines. He chaired the working group, which resulted, in 2003, of national guidelines for the management of Type 2 diabetes.

In his 85^th year Sir Don plans to continue advocating urgent action on diabetes. Some small steps have been made, but many more are needed to defeat the diabetes scourge.

In his view the knighthood is not just recognition of his own lifetime’s work combating diabetes. Rather, he modestly says, the 39 voluntary societies of Diabetes New Zealand see the award as notification to the public that diabetes is New Zealand’s single most serious non-communicable disease. “We must have action now.”

Sir Don was knighted in Old St Pauls, Wellington, on Friday 14 August.

Caption: Sir Don, pictured with a bronze bust of himself, one of 12 Christchurch “local heroes” sculpted by Mark Whyte and unveiled in the Christchurch Arts Centre in mid-March.

Membership

If you are one of the many thousands of people diagnosed with diabetes every year and have lots of questions, let us help you - join Diabetes New Zealand or one of the societies. If you have just been diagnosed with diabetes and are not getting enough information or support? Become a member today by phoning membership: 0800 369 636.

Often adjusting to the fact that you or a family member has diabetes takes time. It can be helpful to meet other people who have been through a similar situation. They can offer understanding, help and support.