Saving a life tops 35 years of service

Every night Adrian Oldham calls his mum in Rotorua and she ends the conversation with the same words - "Don't be a hero".

The 54-year-old Papamoa police officer paid little attention to her instruction on July 6 when he put his life on the line to save 77-year-old Neta Lawrence from her burning home.

Ironically, it was his treasured mum that was on Oldham's mind when, eyes watering and choking on smoke, his self-belief began to wane.

"Tears came to my eyes from the smoke and I'm thinking I can't do this and how do people do it. And there was still nobody out there.

"My mum wears the same winceyette [nightie]. I thought that could be my mum or that's somebody's nana."

Following the rescue he rang his mum and told her sheepishly, "I've been a hero".

"I was just so taken aback," 85-year-old Gloria Oldham told the Bay of Plenty Times Weekend.

To say she is proud of her youngest child is "an understatement", and were his father still alive he would have been proud too.

Of her three boys, Adrian was always the most forward.

"He was quite a brave boy. He'd jump in first and then think about it," she says.

He has always known his career path. "He was always going to be a policeman."

But Oldham's dream came dangerously close to ending when he broke his neck during a rugby game two weeks after arriving at police college in Upper Hutt.

Following the accident, all the would-be-officer could move was his elbows - "like a distressed seagull".

He never doubted he would recover until a nurse told him: "I think you just need to resign yourself to the fact you're never going to walk again."

She was wrong. Two-and-a-half weeks into a four-and-a-half-month hospital stay, he could finally feel something when the doctors pricked his toe with a needle.

Despite medical staff preparing his parents for the seriousness of their son's condition, Gloria Oldham says naivety meant they always believed he would recover.

"He was determined and so were we. We were quite sure that he was going to come right, it was just a matter of time. We just felt there was no way anything was going to hold him back. He was one of the lucky ones. His guardian angel was looking after him," she says.

Once he graduated, she worried about her son's safety as a police officer "all the time".

"But as I've aged, I've realised there's nothing you can do about it and I've got a lot of faith and my prayers are always answered."

While working in Whakatane in 1992, he stopped a vehicle being driven by a patched gang member, who he later discovered was on his way to rob a Tauranga bank.

The man pointed a pistol at Oldham and told him to get in the boot of his police car.

Oldham explained that he wouldn't fit in the boot, which contained accident and first aid kits, and the man then fired a downward shot, narrowly missing his knee.

Fearing for his life, Oldham got in the boot and the man shut the lid and drove off. He was rescued a couple of minutes later by a passing motorist who had watched the drama unfold and thought he had stumbled on to a film set.

"He was expecting somebody to come out and go 'cut'," Oldham says.

Since joining the police in 1979 he has worked in his hometown of Rotorua, followed by stints in Hamilton, Opotiki, Kawerau, Whakatane and Mount Maunganui, before moving to Papamoa.

He now lives in a newly-built Papamoa home with his wife of two years, Robin Reynolds.

Dressed in a blue Huffer T-shirt, well-cut jeans and with bare feet, he and the couple's excitable labrador, Mila, are there to greet me the morning after he was named Bay of Plenty Times Person of the Year 2014.

The six-foot-five-inch tall cop is visibly chuffed at the title and the glass trophy already sits proudly on a bookshelf with his collection of "quirky" antiques and taxidermy.

When he's not on the beat, Oldham enjoys running and walking up the Mount or along the beach with their dog as well as spending time with his wife. They share an obsession for good coffee and can often be found at local cafes.

Oldham also has an unlikely collection of signed autobiographies, everything from sporting heroes to politicians and actresses. He collects old, quirky things and has framed first-edition comic books and a movie poster from the 1920s. His shelves also include oddities ranging from a stuffed duckling to a miners' lamp and a pickled cobra.

From day one, his unquestionably heroic act has attracted more attention than he expected.

The night of the rescue, Oldham called his wife, who loves hearing a good work story, before being checked out of hospital and returning to finish his shift.

"I didn't realise it was such a big deal either," Reynolds told the Bay of Plenty Times Weekend. "He made his own cup of tea, I was sitting in bed."

Oldham slept soundly and it wasn't until the next morning while watching Breakfast that he realised the heroic police officer the presenter was referring to was himself.

"I had so many texts and calls from strangers, other cops all around New Zealand," he says.

For the father of two and grandfather of one, saving a life is a highlight of 35 years in the force.

"It would have to be up there, definitely up there," he said. "I felt good because I saved a life but I honestly didn't expect all of this," he says. Reality hit a few days later when he suffered from delayed smoke inhalation. "I've never been so sick in my life."

The illness forced him to take time off work - something he has always done reluctantly.

"I love the job so much. I might miss out on something," he says.

The day he doesn't wake up keen to go to work will be the day it's time to change jobs or retire, he says.

He's been asked a number of times to sit his exams to become a sergeant or detective in the CIB.

"It just doesn't interest me. I just like dealing with the public, I'm just a people person really. I just like the street work."

He will always be a special person to the woman whose life he saved, and her family.

The pair were reunited at Papamoa Police Station three weeks after the fire.

"She just hugged me and hugged me and just whispered in my ear, 'Thank you for saving my life'. It just hits home that you really have saved a life."

When the Bay of Plenty Times Weekend told Neta Lawrence her rescuer had been named Bay of Plenty Times Person of the Year 2014, she replied: "Yes, Yes!"

"You can imagine how I'm just so happy for him to get something like that. I just think he's the bees' knees," she says.

Lawrence's home was destroyed by the fire and she is now enjoying life in a Tauranga retirement village.

"I love it here and everybody is so nice, the staff, they are all so lovely.

"They reckon they've never had a cheeky, little ratbag like me here. I give 'em hector, we all end up laughing," she says.

"I am enjoying my life, I really, really enjoy it - and I've only got Adrian to thank for it."

Her daughter, Dianne Webber, is thrilled Oldham has been named supreme winner.

"He's an amazing person. Words can't describe what Adrian did rescuing Mum. Nothing's too much of a bother for him, he's just one of those people that goes with the flow."

"We definitely wanted him to get the award. He risked his own life to go in and out of the place. It's just amazing what he did."

She is also surprised that after getting the all-clear at the hospital, Oldham went back on patrol.

"He is like the old-school cops that we grew up with as a child. He's what you call a real community constable."