Babies delivered in the nick of time thanks to helicopter service

Twin babies delivered in the nick of time thanks to Northland Rescue Helicopter.

Roz Dennis remembers well the laconic nature of the Northland Rescue Helicopter pilot who flew her to an Auckland hospital in the nick of time to give birth to two boys – three months premature!

It was 1991 when her pregnancy took a turn for the worse. Her mum drove her to Kawakawa Hospital for a check-up but she was quickly told she needed to be at Whangārei Hospital so they hit the road again.

In no time Dennis was aboard the Northland Rescue Helicopter and en route to the National Women’s Hospital.

“I remember the pilot picking me up and telling me if the boys were going to come early, we would land in a paddock while I gave birth and then carry on to Auckland,” recounted Dennis.

“It was a relief that I actually got out of my mother’s car. The pilot was amazing. I was really scared but we got to National Women’s just in time.”

Roz and her two-pound newborns – Glen and Carl – spent the next three months there before the boys were flown back to Whangārei in a fixed-wing aircraft.

They spent two weeks at each of Whangārei and Kawakawa hospitals before heading home.

However, within a week Glen was taken by ambulance to Whangārei Hospital where he was transferred to Starship Children’s Hospital in Auckland to have the first of 16 operations over 16 years.

“Due to Glen being born prematurely he contracted hydrocephalus and had to have a shunt put in from his head to his tummy to drain the excess spinal fluid he produced,” Dennis said.

Based on her experience, Dennis believed there would be a lot more fatalities without the Northland Rescue Helicopters.

It was because of this experience, Dennis and her passionate National Street Rod Association Northland ‘petrol head’ mates now team up with Repco Kerikeri every year to raise money for the service.

Repco Kerikeri manager Andy Hamberger has given 19 years of service as a volunteer firefighter and said he had seen the Northland Rescue Helicopter firsthand on countless occasions.

“I have seen the carnage and the many lives the Northland Rescue Chopper crews have saved so how can you not support the cause, it’s so critical to people in Northland,” he said.

“It’s good to see an organisation as big as Repco involved and putting money back into the community.”

As 2022 comes to a close the Dennis-Repco partnership has just raised a further $10k for Northland Rescue Helicopters.

Along with other Repco Chopper fundraising gigs over the past decade, Hamberger reckoned he’d helped raise $100k and planned to do plenty more fundraising over the years.

As for Dennis, she planned to keep on fundraising too – as a way of saying thanks for saving her and her babies.