Woman dies as baby sleeps

A Whangarei woman returning from an Easter trip to Wellington collapsed on a bus and later died, leaving a baby with her still asleep.

The Intercity coach was travelling overnight to Auckland when the 44-year-old woman struggled up to the driver complaining of chest pains about 4am on Tuesday. When the bus driver pulled over just out of Rotorua and rang for an ambulance and the police, she fell to the floor.

Acting area manager for Rotorua St John Ambulance, Rob Andrew, who had been attending an accident about 10km away, was first on the scene. He found the incoherent woman rolling in the aisle. A quick-thinking passenger had found a heart spray in her handbag and administered some.

Mr Andrew said the medication was well out of date and he ran out to his car to get his medical kit. By the time he returned, the woman had stopped breathing.

Watched by the bus full of shocked passengers, Mr Andrew started resuscitation. By then an ambulance had arrived and the patient was transferred to it. She died before reaching Rotorua Hospital 20 minutes away.

"We gave her all the chance in the whole wide world but she wasn't going to make it," he said.

Two firemen followed the ambulance by car with the sleeping baby. Its relationship to the woman, age and sex were not known.

Mr Andrew estimated that the child, who did not wake until being carried into the hospital, was between one and two years old.

Rotorua police placed the baby with Child Youth and Family until next of kin drove down from Whangarei. Senior Sergeant Dave Donaldson, who also did not know how old the baby was, whether it was a boy or a girl and if it was travelling with its mother, said there were no suspicious circumstances surrounding the woman's death. Her name has not been released.

A national spokeswoman for CYFS said yesterday she understood the infant had been picked up by family members.

Intercity Coachlines chief executive Malcolm Johns said the event was "extremely rare." It was only the second serious medical emergency the company had had in 13 years.

In Tuesday's case the bus driver - who had more than 10 years' experience - was shaken and had been offered counselling. He continued the overnight trip to Auckland but was now taking a couple of days off.

Mr Johns said there were about 50 passengers on the trip from Wellington to Auckland, which went via Palmerston North and Rotorua. The drama "happened quite quickly". Drivers were trained in first aid and the company had a "critical incident process" which was followed, he said.

That included alerting emergency services urgently.