N.Z. P.M.'s guide dies on ski tour

TEKAPO, New Zealand, Aug. 15 (UPI) -- A veteran New Zealand mountain guide collapsed and died Thursday while accompanying Prime Minister Helen Clark and her husband on a ski tour.

Gottlieb Braun-Elwert, 59, was an old friend of Clark. The prime minister, who was brought out of the mountains on a snowmobile, said they had enjoyed two days of skiing in the Two Thumbs range when Braun-Elwert collapsed at a mountain hut he owned, the Otago Times reported.

Members of the party, which included two cabinet ministers, performed CPR for more than two hours with no results.

"Gottlieb was one of the most incredible people I have ever seen," Clark said in a news conference at the Church of the Good Shepherd in Tekapo. "I have had so many beautiful trips with him."

Ann Braun-Elwert said the cause of her husband's death was still uncertain.

Gottlieb Braun-Elwert, who studied nuclear physics in Germany, immigrated to New Zealand 30 years ago. He ran a guide business, Alpine Recreation.

He guided Clark and her husband, Peter Davis, on so many trips in New Zealand that he called them his most frequent customers and also accompanied them on climbs in the Andes and Africa.