Accidents

In just five years, Queenstown's burgeoning tourism sector has doubled the workload of Frankton-based St John Wakatipu paramedics, who this ski season attended more than 1000 people.

"What seems like a bright idea at 3am after a few bevvies may not seem so bright in the cold light of day," St John Wakatipu operations team manager Alana Reid says.

While the ski season is nearly over, people in the mountains still need to be aware of avalanche risks, specialist Andrew Hobman warned yesterday.

A toddler is in a stable condition in Waikato Hospital after his hand was caught in farm machinery.

Kawarau Jet and two of its drivers have been charged with several offences brought by Maritime New Zealand (MNZ) after allegedly operating unsafely on December 18 last year.

The increasing number of people walking, often drunk, along unlit roads and State Highways is worrying Oamaru police.

A coroner's inquest into the deaths of an Israeli tourist and a Telford Rural Polytechnic student whose cars collided near Balclutha last year has found driver inexperience and failure to react to the developing situation caused the accident.

A goods train carriage is blocking train tracks north of Waikanae after derailing this afternoon.

Alcohol and dark clothing are believed to have contributed to the death of a man hit by two vehicles while walking on State Highway One between Timaru and Temuka last night.

A Wanaka man who admitted a charge of careless driving causing injury after his van hit an 11-year-old girl in April told the Queenstown District Court yesterday he had been blinded by the early morning sun.

A Dunedin student was flown to the Burwood spinal unit in Christchurch after suffering serious head and neck injuries when he fell from a 5m stone wall in London St.

A Dunedin man sustained serious injuries after falling from the roof of a Princes St building yesterday.

The injured driver of a car which crashed on Earnscleugh Rd on Friday night is progressing well in Dunedin Hospital's orthopaedic ward.