Vicky's text sent from her crashed car. Digitally Altered Image / Brett Phibbs
Vicky Feek did not think twice about texting her way out of trouble.
The 16-year-old Ruatoki student had crashed her car over a bank and was perched inside the upturned vehicle, fearing it would fall into the Whakatane River, when she grabbed her cellphone.
"I only had one
bar of service and I tried to ring 111, but I couldn't get through and I thought, 'Oh shit', so I texted my friend and she rang them," Vicky said yesterday.
Text messages can often get through in areas of weak cellphone reception where calls are impossible.
The Trident High School student said she acted on instinct rather than thinking of someone who was certain to have cellphone coverage when she messaged Bianca Purser, who lived about 15kms away in Ohope.
"I didn't really think who to text. She's my best friend, so I thought I'd text her," Vicky said.
Vicky suffered only bruises in Saturday morning's accident, but endured a tearful 45-minute wait while the car lay 3.5m down the bank, balanced half on the ground, half on trees by the river.
"I didn't really want to move because I could see the river through the passenger window and I didn't know how stable the trees were," she said.
Two police cars and three fire engines combed rural roads around Taneatua for about half an hour without success after Vicky mistakenly texted that she had crashed off State Highway 2 when it was in fact Taneatua Rd.
The first sign that help had arrived was when she heard a policeman yelling out: "Are you all right?"
"Then I heard my Dad's voice and that was the best thing. My Dad helped me out the backseat window," she said.
Vicky had been on her way to her part-time job at Pak'n Save in Whakatane when the crash happened about 8am.
Hanging upside-down, she undid her seatbelt and found her phone.
Her father, David, was relieved his daughter was unhurt, and thought her clever to text her best friend rather than try the family in Ruatoki, where cellphone coverage was non-existent.
Sergeant George Fenwick of Whakatane also praised her quick thinking.
