Lucky to have medical staff here in emergencies

are taking ownership of what’s been happening in the community as well as being smarter around looking after their property. Just prior to the holidays we were working with some key local youths and their families and that has also helped.

On the family harm front though, we have had a few callouts, a couple of whom are repeat offenders and we are working with them.

What has been really high over this recent period is traffic callouts, mostly between the Desert Rd and Hatepe and those have been taking up a lot of our time. The main complaints have been of people driving too fast, overtaking on yellow lines, being impatient, or the manner of driving, whether it’s unsafe or just not good and unfortunately a few of those have been visitors doing things like going 50km/h in a 100km/h zone.

However, a lot of our drivers are just plain impatient and not driving to the conditions. We had a bad cold snap last week and we did have a couple of vehicles slide off the side of the Desert Rd. Thankfully nobody was seriously hurt, but these accidents were preventable. It’s a reminder that winter means taking extra care, especially now that we can expect more cold weather and more vehicles heading through our area to the skifields.

A lot of you would have heard about the person who was resuscitated on the side of the Tongariro River three weeks ago after a near-drowning. I’d like to acknowledge the local fishermen, the volunteer firefighters and also the Pihanga Health first responders who all did their bit in saving this woman’s life.

You may not know that our Pihanga Health doctors and senior nurses come to emergencies when the St John ambulance in our area is not close by. I’ve been to two jobs over the last week where they have been there before the ambulance and we really appreciate it. They have the skills, the qualifications and the right medication that they can administer straight away. We are very lucky to have a local response team like this who work here and know the local wha¯ nau and I want to thank them for the good work that they are doing for our community.

Enjoy the rest of the holidays and drive safely, Te Reipa.