Whakaari/White Island: Official death toll rises to 17
Monday, 23 December 2019
The official death toll from the Whakaari/White Island eruption has risen to 17 after a victim died in hospital on Sunday.
Deputy Commissioner John Tims confirmed the death on Monday morning.
He said the person died while in Middlemore Hospital on Sunday night, with police being advised shortly before 11pm.
The person's death brings the official number of deceased to 17. Of the deaths, 16 died in New Zealand and one in Australia.
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* Whakaari/White Island: weather hampers search for missing bodies**
The official toll, from the December 9 eruption, does not include two people still missing, presumed dead, in the waters around the island.
They are Kiwi tour guide Hayden Marshall-Inman, 40, and Australian teenager Winona Langford, 17.
Marshall-Inman was farewelled in a memorial in Whakatāne on Friday where he was remembered as a 'superman', a 'hero' and, now, a 'guardian of Whakaari'.
The search for the two missing was scaled back late last week when Police Deputy Commissioner Mike Clement admitted they'd so far been unsuccessful in their search.
The search was now being handled by Bay of Plenty police.
District commander Superintendent Andy McGregor said an extensive aerial search for further victims of the Whakaari/White Island eruption between the island and the mainland was conducted by Coastguard and police over the weekend.
No further items of significance were located, he said in a statement on Monday.
Police will review the search area to date and make a decision on further search activity, he said.
In a press conference on Thursday Clement described how much it hurt his staff that they hadn't been able to return them.
'It hurts us and it hurts our people,' he said.
He also revealed that police divers at one stage were 'within metres' of recovering Marshall-Inman's body when it was believed to have been sighted in the water near Whakaari's jetty on December 11.
'The reality was the conditions of the ocean meant they could not get close,' Clement said.
'The people on that day have thought long and hard about that. It's what they come here to do. They're disappointed. They backed themselves to retrieve a body and they missed out.'
Last week, Middlemore Hospital announced that more than 600 elective surgeries were set to be delayed as they dealt with the eruption's aftermath.
In the first week following the eruption, the National Burns Service – hosted by south Auckland's Middlemore, but including centres at Waikato, Hutt Valley and Christchurch hospitals – saw more burns than it typically would in a year.
On Friday John Cartwright, incident controller of Counties Manukau DHB's incident management team, said the extent of burns the Whakaari patients experienced required many operating theatre hours, on multiple days, by large surgical and anaesthetic teams.
The nature of the burns suffered was complicated by the gasses and chemicals present in the eruption. That meant surgeries had to be carried out more rapidly than was the case for 'thermal only' burns.
Waikato Hospital took in the largest load of patients, eight critically injured, on the evening of the disaster.
Last week trauma director Grant Christey said it appeared as masks protected the lungs of people caught in the eruption.
'We thought there would be a lot more lung injuries, as well, from inhalation,' Christey said.
'What we learned later, from the people who went out there, was most of [the tourists] had gas masks on,' he said. They put their gas masks firmly on their faces and closed their eyes and tried to get through it.'