News Zealand

When my parents were here visiting, my father seemed to be on a daily mission to get the newspaper. He enjoyed reading about NZ press perspectives on global news as well as discovering hidden gems in the local stories of smaller towns. So I've decided that I would like to share with you stories from the pages of the New Zealand press.

This post's theme: Heroes.


The bus driver story is my favorite. Normally, buses are my enemies: they almost run over us pedestrians and come dangerously close to flattening me and my bike. But today, I could stand behind them because one of their ranks caught car-stealing hoodlums. What's more, the car smashed into a tram (or street car), also the bane of my cycling existence--i've gotten caught twice in their tracks, flying off course into parked cars or oncoming traffic. Again, I thank you cheesy tourist tram, keep up the good work!

Bus driver rounds up suspect

By CHARLIE GATES - The Press | Monday, 23 July 2007

DAVID HALLETT

ABRUPT STOP: a bus driver helped police when he collared a teenager fleeing a stolen car which had smashed into a tram in Cathedral Square, Christchurch, yesterday. Police and tram staff attended the scene of the collision.

A Christchurch bus driver came to the aid of police yesterday by collaring a 14-year-old fleeing a stolen car which had smashed into a tram in Cathedral Square.

The stolen Ford Laser, allegedly driven by a 19-year-old with two passengers aged 12 and 14, was spotted by police on Colombo Street about 9.40am and took off.

The car raced down the street with a police car in pursuit but the chase came to a crunching end almost before it began. The car was overtaking a bus in Cathedral Square when it collided with an oncoming tram.

The three youths fled on foot but a passing bus driver who witnessed the crash left his vehicle to chase the 14-year-old down towards Warners Hotel.

The driver, who works for Christchurch Bus Services and only wants to be known as Steve, said he did not hesitate to leap from his bus and collar the teenager.

"It took me only a second to decide to run after him. A friend looked after the bus for me. I ran a fair way to get him. He was running at a bit of a pace. I reached out and grabbed him by the collar and shook him a few times. I used to be a bouncer so I know how to grab people."

Steve then walked the teenager back to the scene to await the return of the police officer, who had run after the driver.

Another member of the public caught the fleeing 12-year-old and handed him over to Steve, thinking he was a police officer.

Steve then waited at the scene, with a sullen youth dangling from each arm, for the police officer to return with the driver.

Steve said he was driven to act because he could not abide theft.

"I do not like crime and I do not like people stealing stuff. I have had my car stolen, so I know what it is like," he said.

Sergeant Kim Reid said the culprits were "unbelievably young".

"Police had just observed them and were going to follow them when they took off. It was a very short chase. They could not have picked a more solid object to crash into. They are unbelievable young. It is sad, actually," he said.

The 19-year-old has been charged with unlawful taking and the two young passengers are being dealt with by Child, Youth and Family.

Tram driver Ray Pyne said he was shocked by the collision.

"The car came round the outside of the bus and crashed right into me. It all happened very quickly, I just looked up and saw the car heading towards me," he said. His seven passengers were unharmed.

The incident is the second time bus drivers have helped Christchurch police collar a suspect in a month.

Three bus drivers worked together to box in a car being chased by police on June 28.

The medical anthropologist in me likes the medical miracle story. Armed with scalpels and gauze, surgeons are modern day heroes. Now that they are separated, these little guys can go on to cultivate liberal humanist selves.

Conjoined twins medical team in Awards final

Monday, 23 July 2007, 2:38 pm
Press Release: Health Innovation Awards
Conjoined twins medical team in NZ Health Innovation Awards final

23 July 2007

The medical team that separated conjoined twins in 2004 has earned a place in the finals of the 2007 New Zealand Health Innovation Awards (HIA).

Waikato Hospital paediatric surgeon Askar Kukkady led the multidisciplinary team of specialists from Waikato Hospital and Auckland hospitals. The successful separation of the girls was an Australasian first.

Twenty-two finalists are competing in the HIA, three of which are also from the Waikato region. The HIA, a joint endeavour of the Ministry of Health and ACC, were started in 2003 and recognises individuals and organisations that have developed new and innovative approaches to delivering better health services.

The extensive planning and use of an integrated multi-disciplinary team ensured the operation was successful and the twins recovered rapidly. The operations were photographed and video recorded to enable teams around the world to deal with a similar situation.

The incidence of conjoined twins is one in 200,000 live births. The girls born in Waikato were of a particularly rare type called pygopagus twins. Accounting for only 6 percent of conjoined twins, pygopagus siblings are joined at the lower back, spine and pelvis. There have been less than 30 reported cases of the separation of pygopagus twins worldwide with none in Australia or New Zealand.

The operation was planned over five months. An angiogram detailing the twins’ blood vessels was the first recorded angiogram carried out on conjoined pygopagus twins. A model of their fused spine was made based on 3-D images from CT scans. Two weeks before the operation the team practised the operation using a set of custom-made fused dolls. The separation was conducted in two stages, when the twins were three months and five months old, the major operation taking 22 hours with rostered teams working in relays.

Today the twins are leading healthy happy lives. .A number of valuable lessons have been learnt from this major effort. Bringing together a team consisting of over 50 personnel has also helped in managing other complex cases needing the input of several disciplines.

Further information about the HIA is available online at http://www.healthinnovationawards.co.nz

This year’s HIA winners will be announced at the HIA expo and gala dinner held on 10 October at the Wellington Town Hall.

And last, but not least, Harry Potter comes to New Zealand. I have to admit that I only read the first two books, but I do enjoy the movies, the most recent of which I saw this weekend.

City under Potter spell

The Press | Saturday, 21 July 2007

STACY SQUIRES/The Press

Harry Potter mania gripped Christchurch last night with some of the city's luminaries participating in a pre-book release dinner party at Hogwarts – aka the Christchurch Club.

MAGICAL MOMENTS: Corallyn Newman rings the bell for silence at the beginning of the Harry Potter dinner at the Christchurch Club last night. The club's dining room stood in for the Hogwarts' dining hall and the crowd was entertained with speeches, quizes, and a dance performance by four little owls from the Sharon Howells School of Ballet.

The much anticipated seventh volume of the Harry Potter series, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, was released today.

Guest speakers included children's author Margaret Mahy, columnist and law lecturer David Round, and The Press TV reviewer Trevor Agnew, who proposed a toast to the series' author, J. K. Rowling.

The dining room of the Christchurch Club stood in for the Hogwarts dining hall and the crowd was entertained with speeches, quizzes, and a dance performance by four little owls from the Sharon Howells School of Ballet.

The guests were all dressed in Potter gear, with plenty of witches and wizards and even a rat, an owl, and a spider. Witch Sue Collyer said she was a "huge Harry Potter fan".

The five winners of the final Harry Potter book are: Shantelle Godfrey, of Hokitika; Ashley Ross, of Bryndwr, Christchurch; Vaughan Dunlop, of Avondale, Christchurch; D. White, of Rangiora; Helen Blackburn, of Christchurch. The answer to the question was Dudley Dursley.

Cheers,

D

Where have you been!?

Yes, I realize it's already July. And I know it's been over a month. Let's just say that snow in July is throwing me off. I'm wearing a beanie, buried under blankets in my non-centrally heated flat. But it's cool...I get the mountains, the ocean, the slow pace of life all in exchange for slight discomfort. I'm quite used to it, actually, whereas my new flatmate from Nebraska isn't. A snowboarder, he left a hot mid-west summer for the damp chill of Christchurch and the ski-fields of the Southern Alps. He arrived just as I returned from my trip with my parents.

We spent just over two weeks touring much of the North and South Islands and covered quite a lot of ground from the rain forest to the glaciers, and from Maori art and culture to fine wines and cheeses. We also traveled on many modes of transportation: we drove between Auckland the Coromandel and Rotorua; flew between Wellington and Marlborough; rode the train between Marlborough, Christchurch, and Arthur's Pass; jet-boated down the Waimakariri river; drove to Mt. Cook, and then Queenstown; flew in a helicopter over the Alps and Fiordland National Park to Milford Sound (which is really a fjord), stopping on a glacier; and cruised on a boat through Milford.

The highlights for both me and my parents included our tour around Auckland, the Fulbright awards ceremony in Wellington, Arthur's Pass, and our helicopter flight around Queenstown. In Auckland, we learned about modern urban Maori life with a focus on modern art. Melissa, our hip and knowledgeable guide, began our tour at a black sand beach on the west coast of the city. We left a city steeped in fog and arrived in the coastal suburbs with a low winter sun breaking through the clouds. As we stood beneath historic Maori Pa sites (important gathering places, high grounds for refuge or retreat), Melissa recounted the Maori origin story. Standing on the empty beach, we closed our eyes and imagined earth mother and sky father being separated by their children, guardians of wind, volcanoes, the sea, the forest, etc. We opened our eyes in a new world, with a new awareness that would stay with us for the remainder of the trip.

On the next beach, on the other side of the rocks, we noticed a gathering and a Department of Conservation Van. Dogs ran about excitedly. When we got close we could see and smell the sinewy remains of a whale carcass, maybe 5 meters long. The stench was awful and overwhelming, yet it belied a certain beauty of the animal. Having been dead at sea for weeks, much of the skin had rotted away exposing colorful muscle, fat, vessels, and bone. I'd like to think it was an omen.

Not everyone was as interested in the foul carcass as I was, so we quickly left for a bush walk, where my parents were introduced to the native bush, including many ferns, the great Kauri tree, and the Kaukau bush, which provided us with wonderful tea. After our brief walk, we had lunch in a hip neighborhood, explored its galleries, and then met one of New Zealand's master carvers, Blaine Terito. He welcomed us into his home where he showed us his work and shared his stories. He also spoke with us about his moko, or facial tatooing, a Maori tradition reserved for only the most respected members of the community. Moko was almost lost with colonization, but with the current Maori resurgence it's being practiced again. Like many Maori arts, this is concerned with whakapapa, or genealogy and descent. Additionally, it's message lies in what is left unmarked, the white spaces between the ink. We learned a great deal from him and feel very privileged that we could meet with such a highly regarded artist and cultural leader.

Another favorite segment of the trip, was the time we spent in Wellington. There, I met with the Fulbright students from New Zealand, going to study in the U.S., and we were honored together in the parliament building at the awards ceremony. After a couple of ministers, the head of the Fulbright New Zealand board, and the U.S. ambassador to NZ spoke we walked up to the stage to receive our certificate, leis, pins, and shake some hands. After some photos and an a whole lot of kvelling, we retreated to a local sushi bar for dinner with the other U.S. Fulbrights. It was a pretty special night.

From there, we hopped Cook straight to the South Island, where we drank a lot of wine, ate a lot of cheese, and saw millions of sheep. In Arthur's Pass, we had an off-road tour of Flock Hill, a sheep station, and toured parts of Arthur's Pass, our first taste of the Southern Alps. We spent the last few days of our trip in the mountains, sleeping beneath Mt. Cook, and flying to Milford sound, where we cruised below waterfalls misting off sheer cliffs carved out by glaciers millions of years ago. On our way flying back over the snowy peaks, we landed on a pristine glacier. The ice and snow crunched beneath our feet as we walked about. From there, the mountain and glacier sloped down to oblivion with only the ocean beyond it's edge, on one side, and the whole of the Alps on the other. We were there for just a few moments...any longer and I may have blown away.

In other news: I fell while hiking with my parents during our last day in Queenstown and badly sprained my ankle. No hiking for me for the next month or two. So unable to join my flatmates in Queenstown for a weekend of snowboarding, I drove down with them and went to the Wanaka Mountain Film Festival instead. For three days, I immersed myself in extreme sport film: mountain biking, snowboarding, free-skiing, mountaineering, hang-gliding, base-jumping, kite-skiing, and rock climbing. It was a great weekend and as always, a beautiful drive to the mountains. Unfortunately, I returned to my flat unable to find my car where I had left it. It was stolen, with my trusty hiking boots inside. Even if my insurance did cover it (which it doesn't), I could never buy back shoes that had been worn in for six years and had led me through the Appalachian Mountain trail, Costa Rica, the Adirondacks, on now New Zealand. I'm still hoping for the best. Let me know if you've seen a lonely looking red Subaru station wagon; YZ6757.



For more pictures from the trip, check out the link to my flickr photo page.



Cheers,

D