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A 50-year-old man is in hospital with serious chest and spinal injuries after he was crushed by a one-tonne hay bale.
Malcolm Foster was baling hay on a farm with at least five other people from a baling contracting company in Hamurana, 14km north of Rotorua, on Wednesday night.
He was tying a bale on to one side of the back of a truck when another one was loaded on to the other side and pushed the hay bale on top of him.
His fellow-workers lifted it off him before a St John ambulance arrived and treated him at the scene.
The farm was in a remote location down a dirt road, so the Baytrust Rescue Helicopter was called.
The pilot used night vision goggles to find the spot, and took Mr Foster to Rotorua Hospital.
Pilot Neil Dodds said the helicopter was then used again to transfer to Waikato Hospital yesterday morning.
"He's got a long road ahead of him I'd say," he said.
"He wasn't coherent last night, but I had a bit of a conversation with him today. He's a much brighter-spirited man today than he was last night. We had a common interest in classic cars so we had a good yak about that."
Mr Dodds, who said he had done hay-baling work in Western Australia, said the incident was
"definitely a freak accident".
It's just one of those things when you're dealing with mechanical bits and pieces at night and everything adds up.
"Mainly inattention, that's all it is. It's not something that happens every other day."
A Waikato Hospital duty manager said Mr Foster had been admitted to a ward and was in a stable condition.
A spokesman for the Department of Labour said the department knew of the incident, and would speak to police and other emergency services before deciding whether to investigate.
The helicopter had a busy day, having earlier transported a forestry worker who was hit by a rolling tree in Putaruru.
"I think it just fell the wrong way, bounced and caught him off guard," Mr Dodds said.
The man, in his mid-30s, was taken to Waikato Hospital with chest injuries.
