A Far North father has been charged with drink-driving causing injury after a crash which left his five-year-old daughter with critical head injuries.
Billy Atawhaipono Herewini was driving with his five-year-old twins on the afternoon on January 8 when he rounded a bend of Russell-Whakapara Rd on the wrong side of the road, colliding with an oncoming ute.
Herewini broke both legs and had to be cut from the wreckage by volunteers of the Russell Fire Brigade. The driver of the ute and the boy twin were also injured but not seriously.
Herewini's daughter, however, suffered severe head injuries. A young Tutukaka woman, the first person to arrive at the scene, found the girl was not breathing. She placed the child in the recovery position and cleared her airways, prompting her to start breathing again.
The child was airlifted by the Northland Electricity Rescue Helicopter to Auckland's Starship Hospital, where she remained in the paediatric intensive care unit for several weeks.