St John's chief executive Dan Ohs paid tribute to the officer who died (file photo). Photo: RNZ / Nate McKinnon
Black ribbons line the fence outside the Rotorua Ambulance Station - commemorating the death of one of their own.
Inside, staff are sharing memories, sharing kai and sharing cuddles with a black labrador brought in for some reprieve of the immeasurable grief.
The crash killing two people, including an ambulance officer, just South of Cambridge yesterday, has renewed calls to lengthen the Waikato Expressway through Karapiro.
While Waka Kotahi says safety improvements along the stretch of State Highway One are moving at pace they are waiting for funding for an alternative route.
The two-vehicle crash involved a car and an ambulance in the early hours of Wednesday morning, claiming the lives of both drivers.
St John chief executive Dan Ohs said the loss of their officer, while on duty, was hard to stomach.
"This person has been an ambulance officer for 27 years. Fifty-five years of service to St John's so starting within youth, supporting community initiatives then in 1995 moving into the ambulance service.
"The amount of patients this person has come across, dealt with, the people they have touch, it is immeasurable."
St John, along with whānau have decided to keep the identity of the officer private, to honour the humble person she was.
Waikato Hospital confirmed the third person involved in the crash, a registered nurse who was travelling as the attendant in the ambulance, was in a stable condition today.
Ohs said there was nothing "untoward" indicated by the ambulance monitoring system prior to the head-on crash.
"We have an e-road system that measures the speed and manner of driving... from our analysis of that there was nothing to indicate there was anything wrong with the ambulance.
"The first that we became aware of the incident was a call from the public, so our ambulance was unable to send a distress signal. The ambulance officer and the attendant on the ambulance was unable to send out a message asking for help, so that call came from the public."
Ohs said his staff have been honoured by the support of the Rotorua community already.
There would be a blessing of the crash site by St John alongside local kaumatua, he said.
"Obviously our people, where the crash occurred, are driving past that every day including her colleagues so it is important to us to make that safe."
Waikato Chamber of Commerce chief executive Don Good said the stretch of road was a death trap and was unacceptable.
"It's an accident waiting to happen. The expressway continuation through from Cambridge to Piarere was supposed to fix that and it would've done so, it would've been very safe.
"[Government] pulled the pin on the funding and here we are five years later with a whole bunch of accidents."
Good would like to see the Waikato Expressway continued for 16 kilometres, from where it ends at Cambridge, to the Tauranga turn-off at Piarere.
Future crashes could be preventable if the government would measure the urgency to upgrade the road in terms of peoples lives, rather than dollars, he said.
"Since 2017 there has been 32 deaths or serious injuries.
"What should happen is they should reprioritise the funds and complete the expressway as it has been promised."
Waka Kotahi regional manager of system design Jess Anderson said route protection was in place for the planned 16 kilometre stretch, however, funding was reprioritised in 2018.
The government would need to prioritise the funding to see the new route built, she said.
"We do absolutely acknowledge that the stretch of road between Cambridge and Piarere is in need of urgent safety improvements and it does have a history of an unacceptably high levels of death and serious injury.
"But our focus since 2018 has been on addressing those safety concerns so we've already installed four kilometres of flexible median barriers."
Anderson said a further four kilometres of safety improvements were planned for the Summer months and another eight kilometres were in the design process.
