'I TRIED ... BUT SHE WOULDN'T WAKE UP'

Smashed up and injured in a car, Shannon Tamariki spent 40 minutes trying to wake his partner, Whittney Robertson.
But she died in his arms.
Her killer, Royland Alexander McCann, 39, was yesterday jailed for four years.
McCann smashed his 4WD head-on into the couple's car on May 3 near Atiamuri, south of Rotorua.
McCann had been drinking and had been forbidden to drive because of four drink-driving convictions. After the crash, he ran into dense bush, eluding an extensive police air and land search of the area.
He was found by police the next morning walking home on Malfroy Rd.
He was breath-tested and blew an alcohol reading of 150 micrograms per litre of breath. The limit is 400mcg.
Friends of McCann had told police he was intoxicated when he had left their house before the crash.
At an earlier court appearance, McCann admitted one charge each of dangerous driving causing death, dangerous driving causing injury, driving while forbidden, failing to stop and ascertain injury, possession of cannabis and possession of cannabis oil.

Mr Tamariki was at the Rotorua District Court yesterday when McCann was jailed by Judge Chris McGuire.
The 23-year-old told the Daily Post outside court the incident had been "harrowing".
The woman he had hoped to one day marry was lying across him with her eyes closed. "I fought for 40 minutes to try and wake her up. I thought she was knocked out but she wouldn't wake up," he said. Firefighters told him she was "gone".
"I was holding her and told her with all my heart that I loved her."
Mr Tamariki sustained broken ribs, shattered knees, extensive bruising and cuts.
Since Whittney's death, he had found it hard to cope, giving up his job as a DJ at the Lava Bar.
"Everything in this town reminds me of her. I see her in the faces of her friends. It's just too hard," he said.
He was in two minds about McCann's punishment.
"Four years doesn't measure against the life lost but then again no sentence will bring Whitts back or justify her memory."
Whittney's mother, Sonia Wilson, a Rotorua Victim Support worker, read her victim impact statement in court, saying she didn't know how she and her family would cope.
 She said she had been hoping it was a dreadful mistake.
"As parents we should never have to face the death of a child. We had to pick her a casket. I wanted to pick her a wedding dress, not plan a funeral."
Outside court, she told the Daily Post she was pleased with the sentence.
"I just hope now that Royland can make some positive changes so that he won't do this again," she said.
 Whittney's stepfather, Detective Sergeant John Wilson of Rotorua police, said he thought it was a reasonable sentence.
"There has to be a deterrent to people who drink and drive.
"We have to change the beliefs of the community about it."
 

Judge McGuire said during sentencing McCann, an engineer, had four previous convictions for drink-driving, the last in 2004, as well as several breaches of liquor bans.

The 10 impact statements he had read were the "most harrowing" in his 11 1/2 years on the bench, Judge McGuire said.
He sent McCann to prison for three years on the charges of dangerous driving causing death and injury and added another year for failing to stop and render help.
He disqualified McCann from driving for five years.