Serious crash

It took nearly four hours to free a critically injured driver after a truck careened 10m down a bank in Hawke's Bay yesterday. Emergency services called about 9.30am after the crash on State Highway 5 on the Napier-Taupo¯ highway. Senior station officer Ryan McCarty said the truck was caught in two large trees, about 30m above a ravine. “As far as extrications go it was probably about as hard as they come.”