Grieving dad’s battle to get to funeral
Health Ministry must show ‘damn common sense’
The father of a young woman killed in a Hawke’s Bay crash says he should not have faced such a battle to attend his daughter’s funeral. Maja Eve Sanders, 20, and Josh Tom van Hooijdonk, 19, died in a twovehicle crash on the Napier-Taupo Rd at Te Pohue on May 16.
A woman in her 50s also injured in the crash remains in a serious condition in Hawke’s Bay Hospital.
Maja’s father, Bruce Sanders, spends months at a time living in Port Hedland near Perth, driving the monster road trains transporting iron ore for up to 17 hours a day.
He was there when he got the call about his daughter’s death and then began a tenacious 48-hour effort to farewell his daughter, who had just four days earlier celebrated her 20th birthday.
But Sanders said the Ministry of Health needs to up its game when it comes to grieving family members being able to attend funerals of loved ones back in New Zealand and it shouldn’t be as hard as it is.
He said he was denied multiple times by the ministry to get approval to self-isolate at the Hastings home he shares with wife, Rhonda.
“They said the only time they would only allow me to [go] because of the level 2 is if I had a family member that only had days to live, we would let you go after 10 days . . . and then you would have to go back to the hotel to finish self isolation.
“They should have a person on the floor, whether it be an immediate supervisor, have the powers to say no we will grant this however you must abide by the isolation rules.
“It needs to be somebody with some damn common sense that has the ability to make decisions without fear of retribution.”
Sanders, who used to work for Corrections at Hawke’s Bay Prison, said if he wasn’t going to be granted an exemption he would have simply fled his quarantine.
“You cannot turn round to me and say that I’m not allowed to attend my daughter’s funeral.
“I tell you what, that’s harsh. That has got to be one of the dumbest decisions that has ever come out of a government department and I have seen some dumb stuff.”
As it turned out, after being turned down multiple times, he finally received the go-ahead mid-flight across Australia.
He said he never wanted to “go out and party”, he simply wanted to be there to support his wife, and oldest daughter Jaye (25), as well as family members of Josh.
He was grateful to be able to say goodbye and apart from seeing his daughter, he had spent the rest of his time quarantining at home.
Sanders said he had dealt with death or horrific situations on many occasions and had learnt to “compartmentalise it”.
“There’s nothing to say that it’s not going to creep up and hit me on the back of the had like an ugly monster. My partner, Rhonda, is struggling at the moment, my eldest daughter has been the rock that she always has been. She has led from the front.”
He missed Maja, whose nickname was “Spark“, and the pair remained in close contact up until her death.
She had told him about Josh’s plans to take her to Taupo¯ for a belated birthday celebration – she had never experienced Huka Falls.
They were on their way back when the crash happened. The cause is still being investigated, and Sanders said he knew that Josh was a capable and respectable driver who didn’t speed. However, the crash did happen on a dangerous stretch of road, especially when wet, which it was on May 16.
The family was hoping to get precious photos back from the couple’s holiday stored on their phones and camera.
However, there was one family heirloom they thought was lost forever – a pounamu handed down from Maja’s grandmother after she died.
They suspect it was cut loose after she was freed from the car.
Despite multiple searches of the crash scene, it couldn’t be found.
Then there was another search of the car back at the tow-truck depot.
“Just as they were going to leave the towie turned round and said ‘what’s that shining, what’s that shine by the seat there’. And they went back and it was the pounamu.
“And of course you wouldn’t believe it her nickname was Spark.
“She arrived into this world me doing 130km/h down the southern highway to Middlemore Hospital and she arrived in two hours. So she was my little live wire, my little spark.”
The St John ambulance officer who took the pounamu back to Sanders said it was the first time in his 30-year career that he’d had a “win” – finding someone’s precious jewellery after a fatal crash.
“The sun had just started to shine and there was just a shine or glimpse and the towie went over and retrieved it for us.”
Rhonda Sanders and Josh’s mother Bronwyn Gardner, earlier told Hawke’s Bay Today they were grateful for the time the in-love pair got to spend together.
Gardner said their “beloved son” was “kind and caring, an honest, loyal and a genuinely kind soul”.
“I feel exceptionally grateful to have got to know Maja over the past year. She, too, was an absolute delight.
“They were so cute together and completed each other.
“She easily found a place in my heart and so this loss is even more keenly felt.
“They recently moved into a flat in front of our house and we have spent hours together during lockdown with them in our bubble.
“For that time I will forever be eternally grateful.
“The thought of not sharing my life with them is tearing me apart. I feel lost without them.”