By Phil Pennington of RNZ

Rescuers were told to hold back for more than an hour from saving a man and his dogs in the middle of a flooded Canterbury river unless something "catastrophic" happened, an emergency call log shows.

The man got stuck in his ute in the Waimakariri River near West Melton just north of Christchurch, with water flowing around the bonnet, about 12.30pm on Saturday.

The first 111 call for help was at 12.34pm.

A Coastguard jetboat and Fire and Emergency raft crew got him off the ute almost two and a half hours later, at about 2.50pm.

But the log showed the FENZ raft crew were ready on the river bank just after 2pm, but told not to deploy "unless urgent life preservation required" and to wait for the Coastguard.

The Coastguard had only been alerted about an hour after the 111 call.

By the time their volunteers got there, the vehicle was "sinking", according to the log.

"FENZ swift water entering water up stream and Coast Guard entering water from down stream."

The ute was close to…