Tokoroa volunteer firefighters relive crash that killed eight: 'Everyone was gone'

Monday, 29 April 2019

Volunteer firefighters didn't know what to expect when they arrived at a crash between an SUV and a van on Sunday.

A passing motorist was performing CPR on a young boy, lying on the road, close to two mangled vehicles.

That 9-year-old boy was the sole survivor of a crash that killed eight people on State Highway 1 near Taupō on Sunday.

Volunteer firefighters Eugene Healey, left, Colin Cooper, centre, and Tokoroa fire chief Dave Morris.

Firefighter Eugene Healey was among the first to check the white van for survivors.

* Taupō crash that killed eight, third-equal deadliest on New Zealand roads**

'We went into the car, had a look to see if anyone was still alive. But everyone was gone,' Healey, who has been in the brigade for about a year, said emotionally on Monday.

Eight died following a head-on crash in Atiamuri north of Taupō.

'I should have stayed back. It was pretty horrific, what we were seeing.'

Debris, including a red booster seat, was strewn all along the highway and the road was slippery with rain and petrol, volunteer Colin Cooper, who has been in the brigade for 17 years, said.

He began looking for car occupants down the bank and in the surrounding area, who had been ejected from the vehicles.

'It's the worst job I've been to,' he said. 'Our way back here to the station was quiet.

'Our driver, Joey put the radio on and we started to talk. When we got back to the station we had a bit of a counselling talk to clear our minds.'

As soon as the crews arrived, they were focused on the job at hand, like tunnel vision, Cooper said.

About four motorists had stopped at the scene to help, including someone who appeared to be an off-duty health professional.

Cooper checked the vehicles, too, looking for survivors.

'It was just the little boy, everyone else was deceased.'

Those working in emergency services have to deal with horrendous scenes, but he's proud of how they handle it, Tokoroa Volunteer Fire chief Dave Morris said.

'The guys, they would have turned up, just looked at it and gone 'holy hell',' Morris said.

But without a second thought, they carried carried on with the grisly job at hand, like other first responders.

'You deal with it, you do your job and later on do your talking. We've all got families and friends.'

After he received a page saying that eight people died, he could barely believe it. Morris called to check up on the volunteers to see how they were coping.

'One of the things we encourage here is supporting each other … we're like a big family,' Morris said. 'We're close-knit.

'Fire and Emergency New Zealand have great peer support for those who need it.

'The most important thing is to just talk about it. Not bottle anything up.'

Drivers in that area need to be more careful and drive to the conditions, Morris said.

'The roads don't kill you … it's someone on the other end.

'This section of road, the volume of traffic is horrendous, there's a lot of corners out there, a lot of trucks on the road.'

'We see that first hand.'