On The Up: Bravery medal for Northland fire chief who protected Rāwene hospital staff

Governor-General Dame Cindy Kiro awards Rāwene fire chief Zak Bristow his bravery medal during a ceremony at Government House in Auckland last week. Photo / Supplied

A call for help in 2023 turned into a bloodied night of violence for Rāwene fire chief Zak Bristow. His only thought was to protect those around him. Bristow’s selfless acts have been recognised with a New Zealand Bravery Medal.

It was about 11pm on May 18, 2023, when Bristow’s phone rang, summoning him to an emergency unfolding at Hokianga Hospital in Rāwene.

He was used to calls of this kind given he used to step in after hours back when the hospital had no security staff.

When Bristow arrived he heard men yelling and saw the nurses on duty had barricaded themselves behind the glass and doors of their nursing station.

“The place was absolutely covered in blood from the floor to the walls and ceiling,” he said. “It was a hell of a mess.”

The ordeal unfolded at Hokianga Hospital in Rāwene. Photo / NZME

In front of Bristow were three intoxicated men.

The trio had first gone to the hospital as one of the men had a severe laceration on his wrist.

The injured man had begun to act aggressively as two nurses, the only medical staff on duty, attempted to treat his injury.

All three then began to verbally abuse the nurses. The abuse escalated into death threats when staff attempted to stop them.

The nurses hurriedly locked themselves in the office and phoned police.

They had called Bristow too as the nearest police station was 90 minutes away.

Two of the men recognised the fire chief, buying Bristow 10 minutes of calm.

But the third man, who had not clocked the local identity, was “extremely agitated” and kept “fuelling the situation”.

Bristow said the man appeared in a calculating mood.

“He was the one who’d been making all these threats toward the staff and he was the one who had assaulted the patient.”

In the 10 minutes before Bristow arrived, the man had broken the door to a patient’s room. He spat at the woman and punched her in the eye.

Bristow said that man had been his “direct combatant”.

A doctor called to the hospital before the volunteer firefighter had also been punched in the face.

Bristow kicked his 12 years of firefighting experience into gear.

“We’re trained to make those dynamic risk assessments where the situation is evolving,” he said.

Bristow manoeuvred so he was between the staff and offenders.

However, he was later forced to pivot when one of the men made for the long-stay ward housing patients.

He worked to keep the men’s attention fixed on him until the “cavalry arrived”.

“I wanted to make sure those people were safe, that was my key. That’s why I signed up to the fire service,” Bristow said.

As the standoff hit the 50-minute mark, the firefighter issued a clear directive to the men to stay away from the other patients.

“I said, ‘look, you don’t want to be going down there. You go down there, that’s really going to get my attention’.”

Bristow said the subdued warning didn’t sit well with the men.

“I could see that I was getting sized up to be hit.”

Tensions were high, Bristow said.

“One of the offenders then took a big swing and got me on a blind shot on the chin.”

Bristow responded by stepping toward the man and, to his surprise, asking what he did that for.

“One of them was saying, ‘come on you, you’ve swayed him ... let’s get him’.”

As Bristow wentto move, he slipped on blood.

“All four of us ended up on the floor with those three on top of me.”

The men had punched and kicked Bristow before the firefighter had been able to fend them off.

Sometime during the fracas, one of the men had landed a headbutt to Bristow’s eye.

The firefighter said he remained cool throughout the ordeal so that he could protect the patients and staff as best as possible.

Eventually, two officers arrived. Bristow said they were perplexed by the scene in front of them.

“By then there was a lot more blood and when I saw a lot more blood I mean litres of it.

“We were all, quite literally, completely drenched in blood. Luckily for me, none of it was mine.”

Bristow said he had never been in a situation that compared to the events of that night.

In October, he was told he would receive a New Zealand Bravery Medal in recognition of the bravery he showed distracting the trio from harming hospital staff and patients, and being hurt in the process.

Bristow had been surprised by the news.

“It’s not why we sign up,” he said.

Bristow received his bravery medal from Governor-General Dame Cindy Kiro during a ceremony at Government House in Auckland last week.

However, the humble firefighter considered the staff and patients as the heroes that night.

“They had threats made against them, they didn’t know what was going to happen to them ... they should’ve been recognised for what they went through too.”

The men were successfully charged as a result of the incident.