Children walk away from van crash, critically injured person taken to hospital

A rolled van in North Canterbury saw three children walk away from the wreckage but left one person requiring helicopter assistance after sustaining critical injuries.

Fire crews, along with police and ambulance were called to Upper Sefton Rd shortly before 8.15am after receiving reports of a crash.

Police said in a statement that a van had rolled on the Balcairn road and there were initial reports of serious injuries.

Two firetrucks from Amberley and Rangiora attended the crash, shift manager Simon Lyford told the Herald nobody was trapped and required extrication.

He also said at the time all those involved were in the care of attending ambulance officers.

Photos taken by a Herald photographer at the scene showed the score of emergency services blocking the stretch of rural road.

Three children were seen being escorted away from the crash.

A helicopter was called to the scene to transport one patient, who St John Ambulance said was suffering from critical injuries.

The patient was taken to Christchurch Hospital for treatment.

St John also said that three people had sustained minor injuries, whilst a fourth person was moderately injured as a result of the crash.

All four people were treated at the scene.

Upper Sefton Rd has been the location of several crashes in months past, the most recent only a week prior when a collision involved a car and two horses.

One person was seriously injured by the event, another only sustained minor injuries and both horses ended up dying from the incident.

Back in April, emergency services were alerted to a tractor crashing into a ute on a rural stretch by a new Apple iPhone crash-detection feature.

The feature led police to find a tractor upturned on the road, three people had sustained varying degrees of injuries.