Editorial: Life-saving chopper needs your help

You never know when you'll need it, writes Cooper Photo / Glenn Taylor

Quite remarkable that Northland's Emergency Service Trust (NEST) has been operating for 25 years.

The service for patients has never been less than exemplary.

There's been the odd admin hiccup - in the 1990s there was a suggestion it wasn't culturally sensitive enough - among other things - during a strange Accident Compensation Corporation review.

NEST briefly lost an accident response contract and an Auckland-based trust began providing the service from Whangarei, at the same time as a NEST chopper was still carrying out patient transfers.

Strange days and common sense eventually prevailed after NEST's administration tidied a few things up. Politics aside, the NEST service - apart from having Northland's best acronym - is all about the lives that have been saved, the injuries reduced.

As a police reporter, I can vividly recall my first experience with a NEST chopper - it almost killed me.

We were on State Highway 14 at a vehicle accident and the chopper was expertly parked on a closed road, the rotors were engaged, so I wandered back to the Advocate car.

I was grabbed from behind by a police officer, who pointed out that if I kept walking I'd lose my head. I wouldn't have needed a chopper ride home - several vehicles parked at the scene could have shared the responsibility.

There are hundreds of Northlanders with different recollections, who associate the unique noise of the chopper, and the expertise and empathy of its crew, with their daily ability to wake up, to breathe, to live.

And to a man, woman and child - they would all agree that you never know when you'll need it. Which is why. if you can spare a few dollars, throw a few the way of the rescue helicopter appeal.

It might not be your day just yet but you'll be contributing to saving someone else's life, guaranteed.