Cyclone Gabrielle devastates parts of the North Island. Video / NZ Herald / Supplied
“No one is going to die while I’m here.”
The words, spoken by a drenched police officer as raging floodwaters threatened to overwhelm a group of nine people, have made a lasting impression on one woman.
“I thought I was going to die, then somebody so strong was pulling branches out of the way . . . one of the officers told me ‘no one is going to die while I’m here’,” she later told police.
The actions of that officer and four of his colleagues during the horrific events of Cyclone Gabrielle in February have been recognised in a ceremony in Wellington today.
From left at back: Detective Sergeant Heath Jones, Constable Kurtis Maney, Constable Mark Bancroft. Front: Constable Patrick Noiseux, Detective Constable Jaime Stewart.
Detective Sergeant Heath Jones, Detective Constable Jaime Stewart, and Constables Patrick Noiseux, Mark Bancroft, and Kurtis Maney all received the New Zealand Police Association Bravery Award for their daring rescues from the floodwaters in the Hastings District.
Police Association president Chris Cahill said it was “incredibly unusual” for five people to receive the award, which some years didn’t go to anybody at all due to the high bar set for the award.
For five people to receive it this year was “not because we’ve lowered the bar, but it’s because five people hit the bar so high”.
Noiseux, Bancroft and Maney received their awards for a difficult rescue in Pakowhai. The trio had been going door-to-door evacuating residents when a nearby stopbank burst.
“The rescue operation was now a race against a wall of water,” said former Governor-General Anand Satyanand, who was presenting the awards today.
The officers found a group of six people who had been washed into a large hedge, and jumped into the water to save them.
“All three nearly drowned as they worked to get the six people up into the trees as much as possible and held them there.”
Boats and helicopters were unable to get past debris and powerlines to help, and Noiseux knew they were likely to be overcome by the water.
He told police interviewers he was trying to use his own body to break the current which was flowing against one of the people. Then he saw a truck and trailer unit with a digger on it and signalled the driver. He climbed into the bucket of the digger and with the help of his colleagues, pulled each person on to the top of the truck.
They were moved to a nearby bridge, where boats were able to rescue them.
Constable Kurtis Maney.
“I didn’t have time to think about it when I was there . . . I have never been in a situation that was so close for so many different people,” Noiseux said.
Maney said, “we were there for them and that was our job”.
Satyanand said it was evident that if the officers had not “acted as they did without hesitation or concern for their own safety, the six civilians could well have perished in the rapidly rising water”.
Elsewhere that day, Jones and Stewart had been called to the home of a fellow officer, who was on the roof of her shed with a 4-year-old child and 8-month-old baby. The officer’s husband, who was also in the police, was out rescuing other people from the floods and could not make it back to help his family.
Jones and Stewart waded through chest-deep water to reach them and get them to safety. As they headed back to their patrol car, they spotted an elderly couple in the distance trying to walk in fast-flowing water, in a direction that would put them further in danger.
Constable Mark Bancroft.
They soon discovered the woman could not swim, and the man could not swim confidently.
Debris and dead sheep floated past as Jones and Stewart made their way to the couple.
“For the couple to survive, the officers would have to swim them to safety to avoid being drowned,” Satyanand said.
The man went under the water, and Stewart dove under him, using her body to push his head up above the water. She was able to get him to the stopbank and go back to help Jones with the woman, again diving under to keep the woman’s head up.
Detective Constable Jaime Stewart.
Satyanand said the couple would likely have died if it weren’t for Jones and Stewart’s heroic actions.
Stewart said as they carried out their rescues the water level “just rose and rose and rose”.
“The realisation of how dangerous the situation was just really started to dawn on us.”
Speaking on behalf of the award recipients at the ceremony, Jones acknowledged his fellow officers, their families, and the civilians across the district “who stepped up and helped save hundreds of lives”. He also thanked police staff who came to the region to help in the days and weeks afterwards.
“February 14th is a day that will be etched in our memories for years to come.”
Detective Sergeant Heath Jones.
Melissa Nightingale is a Wellington-based reporter who covers crime, justice and news in the capital. She joined the Herald in 2016 and has worked as a journalist for 10 years.
