Easter weekend crashes leave two people critically injured

Two people are fighting for their lives after separate overnight crashes.

Shortly before 12.30am, St John arrived at a Taupō crash where a car had collided with a power pole.

The ambulance took one person to hospital in a critical condition.

A helicopter was dispatched for an earlier crash at Tirohanga in the Eastern Bay of Plenty just before 10pm.

A car had gone off the road into a paddock and one critically injured person was taken to Waikato hospital.

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About the same time a person was thought to have been trapped after a ute towing a trailer crashed into a ditch on State Highway 50 at Maraekakaho, south-west of Napier.

There were four people in the ute when it went off the road, but details of any injuries remain unclear.

Last Easter weekend seven people died on New Zealand roads.