Fatal keeps cop awake

It’s 3am and a Waikato police officer can’t sleep.

He’s been in the force 20 years and attended a ‘‘fair few fatalities’’ – perhaps not hundreds, he says, but ‘‘at times it sure feels like it’’.

‘‘So yesterday, when I attended another fatal between Matamata and Waharoa, well, it was just another and I emotionally went into that space that I go to when I attend,’’ he wrote.

But a harrowing question from the victim’s father set this one apart.

Jocelyn Irene Williams, 38, died after the car she was in with her 53-year-old husband, six-year-old daughter and three-year-old son crashed into a drain on State Highway 27.

‘‘I switch off and go into professional mode.

‘‘Arrive, assess the scene, quickly speak to witnesses, check to see who is injured, what resources are needed, more witnesses, preserve evidence and so on.

‘‘So yesterday’s routine was the same as several weeks ago, and the same before that …’’

When the officer arrived at the scene, not far from Pohlen Rd on the bright Sunday afternoon, Williams’ body was still in the overturned car.

Her children and husband were out, being attended to by St John paramedics.

‘‘I noted an older couple with a fireman and they were looking at the upsidedown car.

‘‘The gentleman told me he was the victim’s father and he was in the car ahead of the crashed car and heard it happen.

‘‘In my unemotional, unattached professional manner, I got all the kids’ and victims’ details.’’

Standing on the side of the rural highway as emergency services scurried around, awaiting the arrival of rescue helicopters, Williams’ father asked a final question. ‘‘My daughter is dead, isn’t she?’’ ‘‘Oh hell, how do I react to that?’’ the constable asked himself.

‘‘I think I mumbled, yes, she is. ‘‘He was teary, and so was I. I don’t do tears and I don’t do emotion … up until that point.

‘‘To be confronted by a dad who has lost his daughter, a husband who has lost his wife, and two kiddies who have lost their mum, it just brought the tragedy home.’’

The post was put up on the Waikato police Facebook page with permission from the victim’s family.

The two children and husband have now been discharged from Waikato Hospital, where they were flown in critical to serious condition.

While the Serious Crash Unit is still investigating, initial indications are that the car was heading south into Matamata when it meandered to the left, then corrected back on to the highway, crossed the centre line and crashed into the ditch on the opposite side.

The woman’s husband was driving. Williams was in the front passenger seat. Both children in the back were properly restrained.

The officer’s story was accompanied by a message from Waikato road policing Senior Sergeant Pete van de Wetering.

‘‘When things go wrong, it affects us. ‘‘But we still have families intact to help us get through it and in this case, a little support from Facebook friends.

‘‘The victims of road crashes no longer have the same intact families and their lives have been shattered in so many ways, so their pain is far greater,’’ van de Wetering said.

‘‘I’m not certain what I am trying to achieve by sharing this,’’ the constable’s post continues, ‘‘but can I just say that those of us in the emergency services have to deal with this sort of thing regularly.

‘‘Each of us are affected and deal with what we see in our own way.

‘‘3.53am and I still can’t sleep.’’