"We're typically hitting high 20s (degrees Celsius) every day at the moment, and that means we're not likely to find people sitting on their couches. We're finding them collapsed on the shoreline after getting into trouble in the water, on sand dunes after a collision on a dirt bike or quad bike, or in isolated terrain after misjudging danger."
Last week a man in his 50s had been flown to hospital from Kaipara's South Head after sustaining a back injury while four-wheel-driving, and on 29 January a young crew member needing hospital care was winched from a fishing vessel approximately 40 miles north-east of Cape Reinga, following a similar rescue on January 15 when an injured man was winched from a yacht between Lang's Cove and Sail Rock.
All patients transported in Northland Electricity rescue helicopters were cared for by St John intensive care paramedics, who travelled on each and every callout.
One of those paramedics, Ben Lockie, said he had worked with the NEST team for six years, and could see the demands on the service steadily increasing.
"There is no doubt that we are becoming busier and busier every year, particularly over the summer months when the population swells and pushes out to the coast and into some of the more remote areas of the Northland district," he said.
"The type of incidents we are attending isn't really changing; it's the volume. There just seems to be more of them."
That increase in demand affected everybody, but the team at NEST and St John worked together tirelessly to ensure that the service was always available.
St John paramedics were highly experienced pre-hospital emergency clinicians who played an integral role in providing medical care and treatment to every patient who was transported, Mr Lockie added, and he considered himself very lucky to be part of the operation.
Reflecting on the past year, the team attended 797 callouts in 2014.
