Shannon rescuer relives horror crash

A fireman repeatedly entered a flooded van to rescue its occupants after it crashed killing three children from the same family.

Volunteer firefighter Mark Hayson was one of the first people on the scene after the crash on State Highway 56, near Shannon, on Wednesday.

One-year-old Hikurangi Te Pounamu Raiwhara, and his older sisters Ashlie Waiata, 3, and Hannah May, 5, all of Palmerston North, died when the van their mother was driving overturned and crashed into a ditch.

Their eight-year-old brother and mother, Kathy Rifle (also known as Kathy Raiwhara), are both in hospital, in serious condition.

Mr Hayson told the Horowhenua-Kapiti Chronicle he was wrestling with his emotions after the reality of the crash.

The father-of two from Shannon sat quietly cuddling his four-year-old daughter Jess as he spoke of the tragedy.

Less than 24 hours earlier he had scrambled into the wreckage of the overturned van lying in a drainage ditch on a country road and desperately started dragging the bodies of children from it.

Mr Hayson said he had picked up his son from school and was returning home when he saw a truck in the middle of the road and its driver running around with a fire extinguisher.

"I saw some smoke but I wasn't sure where it was coming from.

"There was no oncoming traffic so I drove by the truck and just noticed the tyres sticking up above the ditch," he said.

Mr Hayson stopped his car, told his children to stay inside and ran over to where the wreck lay upside down in the ditch.

He remembers seeing a woman on the roadside with a child and another woman screaming from inside the crashed van.

"The truck driver and I frantically looked for a way in but couldn't find one."

Eventually Mr Hayson found the back window had been smashed and decided to go in.

"The water inside would have been about a foot deep. I found one of the children - I think it was a boy - face down in the water.

"I grabbed him and dragged him out and gave him to someone - I don't know who - and said 'here take him, I think he is alive'."

Mr Hayson went back inside and asked the mother to give him the child she was holding.

"She said 'get the other one'. I looked around and found another small child lying in the water amongst all sorts of things that had fallen about when the van had rolled.

"I got the child and dragged it to the opening and lifted it out into someone's waiting arms."

Mr Hayson returned to rescue the remaining child and again to get Mrs Rifle free.

When he came out of the wreckage for the last time he saw people trying to resuscitate the children. He knew at least one was dead.

"The adrenalin had kicked in. I was just acting on instinct. I was not thinking about what I should do next. I just seemed to do it," he said.

Later on Wednesday night during the debriefing at Shannon Fire Station he was told two children had died at the scene and another had died at Palmerston North hospital.

As he held his daughter tightly and with a strained emotion on his face Mr Hayson said: "I keep thinking to myself how could I have done things better.

"Was I too slow? Did I do all the right things?"

Police are continuing their investigation into the crash, checking for mechanical faults, whether the children were wearing seatbelts and whether they were working correctly.

- HOROWHENUA-KAPITI CHRONICLE