A Wairoa family whose baby died when a school bus careened into their car are giving some of the donations they’ve received to the emergency responders who helped save their other two boys from the wreckage.
It’s an act of generosity that firefighters say is both rare and overwhelming, and will help them heal from the tragic sight of the mangled car.
Jordan Biddle and his Hawke’s Bay family’s lives were forever changed on February 10 when a bus smashed into the family’s car at the intersection of Black St and Achilles St/State Highway 2 in Wairoa before carrying on and colliding with another truck.
A police spokesman said on Wednesday that the crash remained under investigation. Stuff reported the bus driver may have “had a medical event”.
Inside the car were Biddle’s partner Aroha Ropitini, and their three sons, Mikaere Biddle, 6, Matene Biddle, 10, and baby Hendrix Biddle, who was born in early 2026.
Hendrix died and Mikaere and Matene were taken to Wairoa Hospital in a critical condition.
Aroha was also badly injured, and Biddle says she is using a wheelchair while she physically heals.
Biddle, a farm manager in Raupunga and a rugby and rural community leader, was in Tauranga at a conference at the time of the crash.
In his first interview since the February 10 tragedy, Biddle said he had decided to give back to those who helped prevent a dark day from being even worse.
He said he would be donating 20% of the money the Hawke’s Bay community had raised for his family in the aftermath of the crash.
Hawke’s Bay Rescue Helicopter and Wairoa Fire Brigade would be the recipients, he said, and on top of the donation money, he would give $2000 out of his own pocket - $1000 to each.
“I just wanted to give back somewhere, and I started at the car accident, the people who were there that helped save the family when I couldn’t be there,” Biddle said.
“The helicopters were part of helping us fix some of the tragedy.
“If they weren’t there, possibly both of the other two boys wouldn’t have made it.
“The Wairoa fire brigade, they were there, they are always out helping. I just thought I would help them as well.”
He said the whānau had been overwhelmed by the love of their community.
“The community has been unreal, and the support has been massive, and it’s made our job a lot easier, taking that pressure off.”
Two weeks on, Biddle said Mikaere was recovering from a broken femur and a brain bleed, while Matene was now out of a coma and getting around in a wheelchair.
The emotional tangi for baby Hendrix was held last Thursday.
Biddle said the boys and their mum were in Hawke’s Bay Hospital in Hastings recovering, with Aroha and Mikaere given a day pass to attend the tangi.
Biddle, who recently started a popular social media channel called Country Kids to document his family’s outdoor adventures, said they had always been a whānau that followed a hand-up, and not a hand-out, approach to life.
He said the coming months would be challenging, but the plan was to use a three-phase response to try to heal from the tragedy.
“When challenges come across the table, depending on how big they are, the easiest way to break them down is to break them into phases.”
He said they were now in the third phase of recovery, which he expected to be not the hardest but the longest, with some semblance of “normality” at home likely still a few weeks away.
Wairoa Fire Brigade deputy fire chief Te Arohanui Cook said it wasn’t often they had people they had directly helped give back to the service.
“It’s overwhelming, it’s not something we’d ever expect,” she said of Biddle’s donation plan.
“It helps us heal too.
“Quite often, what we are is a fleeting visit in their lives.
“What they have done is dial 111 in their moment of need and with any emergency service, we turn up as quickly as we can.”
Andy Quayle, Hawke’s Bay Rescue Helicopter Trust chief executive, said they appreciated the family’s generosity during a difficult time for the whānau.
“Donations such as this are a humbling reminder of the connection our communities have with our service, and go directly towards ensuring we can continue to deliver critical rescue helicopter services across Hawke’s Bay when people need us most.”
Michaela Gower joined Hawke’s Bay Today in 2023 and is based out of the Hastings newsroom. She covers Dannevirke and Hawke’s Bay news and loves sharing stories about farming and rural communities.