Central Hawke’s Bay crash victim Matthew Dasent remembered as ‘superhero’ father

Takapau dairy farmer and father Matthew John Dasent, 58, died after a two-vehicle crash on State Highway 2. Image / Composite

A dairy farmer killed in a crash on a Central Hawke’s Bay highway is being remembered as a “superhero” who would give someone his singlet in a snowstorm.

Matthew John Dasent, 58, died after a two-vehicle crash on State Highway 2 at Takapau on April 29.

His daughter Jane Dasent, 32, told Hawke’s Bay Today her father would be remembered as a massive Ford fan, but also as a modest man of immense generosity.

“He could be wearing a singlet and a pair of shorts in a snowstorm and freezing his butt off, and he’d still take his singlet off to keep somebody else warm,” she said.

“[He was] super loving, super kind, super gentle, but also very fair.”

She said her father was found unconscious after the crash and was unable to be revived in hospital.

Matthew’s tangi was on May 7 in Coromandel.

Jane said her dad grew up in the rural Hastings settlement of Maraekakaho and went to school in Napier.

Jane said the family then moved to Coromandel, where she and her siblings grew up.

Jane said her father was a “very big provider” who worked non-stop for his wife and three children.

“He was always working, always trying to give us the very best that he could.

“My whole entire life I think maybe I’ve seen him not work for up to maybe a month and he hated it.”

Matthew eventually moved to Takapau to work as a dairy farmer.

Jane said her dad was a “superhero” who could fix anything.

“I never had to rely on anybody else because my dad was always there, because that was the kind of person that he was.”

Jane said she had a humble upbringing with her father, but once Matthew had grandchildren, the spoiling began.

“What McDonald’s money that wasn’t there when I was a kid, all of a sudden there was heaps of it for his grandchildren,” she laughed.

Jane said she could talk about her father “forever”, much as he could talk the ear off anyone about the things he cared about.

“Whether it was his job or his cars or his mokos, because his mokos were the thing that made him the proudest.”

Jane said if there was a silver lining to the “completely devastating” situation, it was her dad now being able to spend time with his son – her brother – who died at two months old in the late 1990s.

Jack Riddell is a multimedia journalist with Hawke’s Bay Today and has worked in radio and media in the UK, Germany, and New Zealand.