Falling bale kills teen

A 15-year-old Te Puke High School student has died from injuries sustained when a hay bale fell on him as he helped out on the family farm just out of Rotorua.
The  incident happened on Tuesday  on land leased by his family on Maniatutu Rd, north of Okere Falls. The  youth was airlifted to Rotorua Hospital and transferred to Middlemore Hospital in Auckland but died  on Thursday. His name had not been officially released early today.
A neighbour and friend of the family,
 farm manager Bryan Edhouse, said, "He (the  youth) has done odd jobs for me. He was very hard working and outgoing."
He  was uncertain how the hay bale, which  had been already half-rolled out,  had come to knock over the  teenager,   who had been helping his father and sister.

 St John Ambulance Lakes District operations manager Norm Riedinger said the incident was tragic.
 "He was just working on the farm doing what good kids do helping Dad. They are a good, honest Kiwi family working on a farm and they've had this tragic accident. It's just one of those things and it's bloody awful."
The bale was estimated to  have weighed  between 200kg and 400kg.
A decision was made to send two paramedics in a rescue helicopter rather than a road ambulance to get to the paddock off Maniatutu Rd as soon as possible.
Mr Riedinger said all accidents were emotional but this one had shocked staff more than most.
"All accidents are accidents but people out there doing what they do, working hard as a family, that's hard.
"Their lives have been turned upside-down in the blink of an eyelid."
The  teenager was due to return to class on Monday.
Te Puke High School principal Alan Liddle said the school was looking into whether a counselling service should be put in place for the boy's classmates.
"These are very tragic circumstances," Mr Liddle said.
"Our thoughts are certainly with the family and we need to respect their privacy."
The teenager had previously attended Pongakawa School and principal there Craig Haggo said he remembered him as "a really cool kid, a neat kid".
"He had a brilliant, dry sense of humour," he said.
"He was a classic. Real good fun. He was a kid that worked really hard on his learning and by the time he left he was succeeding particularly well." Mr Haggo said the  youth had loved  farming and nature.
"He was very, very keen on pig hunting. He used to speak a lot about him and his dad and hunting escapades. His mum and dad were really proud of him and he was their only son as far as I'm aware. He had three [older] sisters and would quite often talk about his sisters to me when we had a yarn waiting for the buses. He was really, really proud of them. They played music and sport and [he] himself was a very good rugby player, real tenacious."
Mr Haggo said  the youth was the sort of child  who gave everything a go. "He was a 110 per cent sort of kid. A very, very awesome kid, very popular with staff and kids."
Mr Haggo said Pongakawa was a small close-knit community and the tragedy would undoubtedly be felt hard.
"There is a real community spirit and the loss of a child in the community, you almost feel it like it one of your own," he said.
"People will be just devastated."
The accident comes five months after a 54-year-old Rotorua man was hit by two large hay bales  that fell on him while he was working on a farm.
The man was helping to stack hay bales when two  weighing about 350kg each fell 2m, hitting him before rolling off him on to the ground.
Federated Farmers Rotorua/Taupo president Neil Heather said news of the farm accident was tragic.
The Department of Labour confirmed it was investigating the  incident.