NEW ZEALAND GAZETTE, No. 61

6 MAY 2011

Waioeka River

The entire unit was in danger of sliding into the water. The driver was trapped in the cab and had sustained broken ribs. Eyewitnesses describe the truck as being in a very precarious position and the top of the cab was starting to split due to pressure from the trailer unit immediately above it.

Mr Peter Hanne, aged 18 years, who lived nearby, was alerted to the incident by a passing motorist and immediately went to the scene. He climbed three metres down from the road to reach the crash site. He crawled under and through the wreckage and up to the driver’s window, which he smashed with a wheel brace and assisted the driver from the cab and up the river bank to safety.

Throughout the rescue there were sounds of creaking and groaning metal from the truck as it continued to move. At one stage the driver thought it was going to topple into the water. Had it done so, Mr Hanne would have been crushed and both he and the driver would probably have lost their lives.

Peter Hanne could have watched and waited for emergency services to arrive; however, he displayed bravery and disregard for his own safety in going to the immediate assistance of the trapped driver. As the truck was moving throughout the rescue attempt, he could not be sure that there was enough time to effect a rescue and that he would emerge from the attempt unharmed.

Christine Margaret JACKMAN

Citation

At approximately 9.45 a.m. on the morning of 7 May 2009 Ms Christine Jackman was leaving her home in Guys Hill Road, on the way to the gym, when she heard a number of what are now known to be gunshots coming from Chaucer Road. Thinking nothing of it at the time, she drove to the northern intersection of Guys Hill Road and Chaucer Road South, where she was waved down by a neighbour and told that there had been a shooting and a man had been seen crawling up a driveway halfway down the hill. Getting out of her car, she could see someone crawling slowly towards one of the houses. Her next door neighbour, Mr Donald Fraser then drove up. The two of them talked for a short while, after which Mr Fraser drove down Chaucer Road South to see if he could help.

Seeing Mr Fraser help the injured man to cover behind a fence, Ms Jackman decided that she too would help and drove her red Honda car down Chaucer Road South, parking it behind Mr Fraser’s Toyota. On arrival it became clear to her that the injured man was a Police Officer, Senior Constable Bruce Miller, and that he had been shot in the back. At the time, Mr Fraser was talking to the Police on his cell phone. The Police needed to know the address at which they were located, so both of them started to check the letterboxes of the adjacent houses. Two shots fired by the gunman at this time brought their efforts to an abrupt halt and Ms Jackman took cover behind her car.

She then saw three Police Officers moving down Chaucer Road towards her position and called to them to come and assist. When they arrived, one of them, Detective Sergeant Smith, asked her if he could use her car to remove Senior Constable Miller to safety. She agreed. On instructions from the Police, both she and Mr Fraser then withdrew up Chaucer Road accompanied by two Police Officers, finally taking cover at No. 51.

Ms Jackman acted bravely in going to the assistance of the wounded Police Officer at risk to her own life. The information she provided to Police from a position close to the gunman was influential in their subsequent handling of the incident and enabled the wounded officers to be evacuated from the scene and receive vital medical attention much sooner than might otherwise have been the case.

Conor Liam O’LEARY

Citation

At 3.55 p.m. on 24 April 2009 Mr Conor O’Leary, aged 15 years, was a rear seat passenger in a car driven by his father, off-duty Inspector Michael O’Leary on State Highway One some 17km north of Taupō, when the vehicle in front of him, a Toyota van, collided head-on with a black sedan coming the opposite way. The Toyota, which contained six people, flipped into the air, landed on its rear, and rolled four times before going off the road and down a grass embankment and bursting into flames.

As his father went to the aid of the victims, Conor controlled the traffic flow approaching the accident scene, before getting someone else to continue with this task and going to assist his father.

Seeing his father run towards the burning Toyota, Conor decided to help and followed him down the bank and over the wire fence. By the time he arrived, his father had already rescued a child from the wreck and was taking him to a safe place in the nearby paddock. As Conor looked at the burning Toyota, he could see a man moving inside, but he was unable to help due to the intense heat and flames. When his father returned to the Toyota to attempt to rescue a second child, Conor went to assist. Conor, his father and Mr Peter Booth tried to pull the child free of the vehicle. All the time the child was yelling out ‘Help me, I’m burning’. Eventually, Inspector O’Leary was able to cut away the seat belt holding the child inside the vehicle and pull him free.

Once the child was free and his clothes extinguished Conor, looked after him and tended his injuries until help arrived.

Having seen the trapped man inside the burning vehicle, and been beaten back by the heat and flames once already, Conor O’Leary put aside any fear he may have had and went to help his father rescue the second child. In doing so he displayed levels of fortitude and bravery that are beyond those expected of a 15 year old.

Stephen James SMITH

Advanced Paramedic, St John Ambulance Service

Citation

On the morning of 7 May 2009 Advanced Paramedic Stephen Smith was the St John Ambulance Service on-call Duty Manager for the Hawkes Bay area. While attending a civil defence meeting, he was called to attend the incident at Chaucer Road South, Napier, and coordinated the deployment of St John resources, including two ambulances. Having first provided immediate medical assistance to one wounded Police Officer, Mr Smith took up a position with the cordon at the northern junction of Chaucer Street South and Guys Hill Road. While there, he was approached by the Police commander at that location and asked if he would assist with the retrieval of a wounded Police Officer who was located very close to the gunman’s known position and needed medical attention before being evacuated. Mr Smith agreed and, having been fitted with a ballistic vest by one of the Police Officers and briefed on what to do if fired upon, he joined the evacuation team and began a steady walk down Chaucer Road towards the house where the casualty was located at No. 45. The last few metres to the house were in the line of fire from the gunman’s last known position.

On arrival, Mr Smith immediately treated Senior Constable Grant Diver for a serious lower abdominal wound and prepared him for evacuation. He realised that Senior Constable Diver required surgery as soon as possible if he was to survive. Having placed him on a stretcher, the evacuation team began the walk back up Chaucer Road South to the Police cordon and the waiting ambulance.