Photo: 123RF
A man has been charged with endangering transport after shining a laser at the airborne Otago Rescue Helicopter for four minutes on Monday night.
Helicopters Otago owner and pilot Graeme Gale says they were transporting a seriously sick patient to Christchurch and were returning when the crew were struck with a laser off the coast of Oamaru.
"Obviously...we're in a birds eye view to actually see where that laser's coming from and we were able to go and track where the laser was coming from, identify where the property it was coming from, call police at the same time and direct them to exactly where it was and [they] apprehended the guy."
Shining a laser at a helicopter was "extremely dangerous" and Gale said he had zero tolerance for it.
He's told all his pilots to try to track where a laser is coming from if they are put in the same position.
"I hold no sympathy...I want it dealt with in the strongest possible way.
"They need to understand, we're not actually out flying around in the middle of the night for fun, we're on life saving missions, protecting lives and when we get some clown that's flying a laser at us - you can get hit in the eye and end up with temporary blindness or permanent blindness.
"Now, that's not good when you're flying a helicopter and we've only got one pilot on board, it's going to be catastrophic. Potentially you lose the helicopter, you kill the pilot, you kill a couple of medics and a doctor and a nurse."
