Wairoa crash victim dies

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A Hawke's Bay farmer has described finding an unresponsive man who spent a night in a wrecked ute 30m down a bank near Wairoa and later died in hospital.

Neil Maurice Christie, 53, died in Waikato Hospital on Tuesday night after his vehicle crashed on SH38 near Lake Waikaremoana on Saturday night.

He was a farm manager from the small northern Hawke's Bay settlement of Ohuka, northwest of Wairoa.

Northern Hawke's Bay farmer Ray Westcott, found Mr Christie near his wrecked ute about 70m off Lake Rd on Sunday morning while jogging about 22km west of Frasertown.

The crumpled vehicle had been lying there through the night, obscured from the view of passing motorists, but Mr Westcott, who lives about 1km from the crash site, spotted the exposed metal from the edge of the roadside bank.

"His car was brightly coloured - it was silver and the silver caught the corner of my eye."

He climbed down to find Mr Christie lying unconscious and "pretty badly beaten up" beside his vehicle, which had come to rest about 15m from a swollen river.

"He was totally unresponsive. I don't think he had much longer to last down there. It was quite cold and he'd been there most of the night I'd say. It had been raining on and off. He must've been a reasonably tough character."

Mr Westcott alerted emergency services about 10am and gave Mr Christie, who momentarily stopped breathing, basic first aid.

Police, fire and St John ambulance crews from Wairoa responded, along with the ECT rescue helicopter from Gisborne.

Mr Christie was transferred to Hamilton from Gisborne Hospital by a rescue helicopter before he died two days later.

The police serious crash unit is investigating Mr Christie's death.