When a rental van full of nine Chinese and American tourists crashed near Reporoa, injuring everyone on board, Rotorua's Kelly Qiao was just starting her grocery shopping.
Chinese-born Ms Qiao received an urgent call on Wednesday evening from the teacher of her professional speaking course, Margriet Theron, to drop what she was doing and head up to the hospital to help doctors with translating.
When she arrived at the Rotorua Hospital six Chinese tourists, most of whom were elderly and could barely speak English, were in shock and panicking.
"They were feeling a lot of pain and thought they were seriously injured. I translated for the doctors and tried to comfort them."
Ms Qiao, a local accountant, said she had to calm them down by explaining what injuries they really had, most of which were relatively minor including muscle aches and bruises. She said that, to her knowledge, the worst injuries were suffered by an elderly man who broke some bones.
The group of six Chinese tourists, a Chinese tour guide and two American tourists was discharged from hospital later that night.
Ms Qiao said she believed they had plans to stay at a hotel overnight before travelling to Auckland yesterday.
Two of Ms Qiao's Professional Speaking for Migrants classmates, Frank Yin and Gladys Song, also arrived at the hospital to help with translating.
The driver of a Nissan Skyline who left the scene of the crash after allegedly performing a u-turn in front of the rental van has been located by police. Rotorua police Senior Sergeant Denton Grimes said the driver had made his way to Lakes Primecare, in Rotorua, to receive treatment to his leg after the crash.
Mr Grimes said police were investigating the crash and no one had been charged at this stage.
Rotorua Hospital spokeswoman Sue Wilkie said they were grateful to the volunteers who turned up to help translate for the tourists.