Man bleeds to death after punching window

A man bled to death after punching a pane of glass in a door in the early hours of Saturday.

The man, aged 25, died in an ambulance on the way to Whangarei Hospital after losing a significant amount of blood, police said.

Officers said the man went to a home in Keyte St, Kensington, about 2.15am on Saturday after he had been drinking at a friend's house.

The man was said to be "extremely intoxicated and agitated" when he got to the Keyte St house, and he had gone to bed.

However, a short time later he had got out of bed and started "ranting and raving" at a woman who was babysitting at the house at the time, police said. The babysitter had told the man to leave the property, which he did.

But the man later tried to come back into the house, although the door had been locked by the babysitter. Police said the man punched his way through a glass pane in the door, severing a major artery in his arm on the broken glass, which caused him to bleed profusely.

An ambulance was called by a person at the address, but by the time it had reached the Keyte St property from the nearby St John Ambulance Centre on the other side of Kensington Park the man had lost a tremendous amount of blood, police said.

He died in the ambulance on the way to hospital.

Police said the death was not being treated as suspicious, but rather as a tragic accident.

The name of the dead man had not yet been released.

- NORTHERN ADVOCATE (WHANGAREI)