Poppa's rescue makes a world of difference to family

Paul Walker had had a pretty busy week, getting up most mornings about 4am and working all day in the Te Kuiti New World supermarket, then doing various things at home in the evenings.

So on Friday, April 14, after a rather hectic morning, he set off to attend a funeral in Te Awamutu. He got as far as just north of the Te Kawa Crossroads.

“I can remember thinking ‘You’re going to sleep, Paul’, and I felt this warmth all over me – and the next thing I had a crash.” Paul, aged 58, had fallen asleep at the wheel, and as his car veered across the road an oncoming driver managed to almost steer out of his way. The two vehicles scraped along the drivers’ sides.

“Thank goodness the other driver saw me coming and was able to turn away a bit,” says Paul. “I was so glad no-one in the other vehicle was hurt.”
He says a number of people were quickly on the scene, and an ambulance and the Westpac Waikato Air Ambulance were called.

“A policeman came, and I told him I’d fallen asleep,” Paul says. “My right arm was bent round behind me and I couldn’t get it back.

“I believe I spent about an hour or more trapped in the car before the fire brigade people could cut me out. I can remember being taken to the rescue helicopter and they told me I was only eight minutes away from hospital.”

In fact, Paul had been very seriously injured, and his daughter, Shelley, who lives with her family in Cambridge, had been contacted by police at the scene who told her she should get to Waikato Hospital if she could, and that it was possible her father may not live.

“Then I got a second call from the police at the scene to say Dad had been taken out of the wreck and was in the helicopter on the way to hospital, and he’d be there in eight minutes,” says Shelley.

“The relief for me was enormous, and the comfort of knowing he would be in hospital so quickly kept me together.”

Paul’s injuries included a badly bruised chest, serious internal injuries, a broken leg and a shattered elbow. He had five sessions of surgery in five days, and is now on the way to a good recovery.

“It’s just incredible that they could get him to hospital from the accident scene in just eight minutes,” says Shelley. “It’s just wonderful, amazing.”
Shortly after the rescue, she wrote a letter of special thanks to the rescue helicopter personnel, and also to each of the major sponsors of the rescue service.

“I have a young family, three children, the youngest only four months old,” she wrote. “I am so very thankful their Poppa will be around to watch them grow up, and be part of their lives. I really want to thank you, the people there, on the scene, doing the hard work. “What may have been all in a day’s work for you, has made all the difference in the world to me and my family.”

Says Paul: “In rural communities, that rescue helicopter is just marvellous. It weighs a lot, but it’s worth its weight in gold.”