Young tourist's death still puzzles her folks

Sarah Bond's quad bike lurched forward and over a bank. Photo / Supplied

It was supposed to be the trip of a lifetime for Sarah Katie Bond.

"One of life's enthusiasts", the 23-year-old from East London was to spend nearly a year experiencing the sights and sounds of New Zealand and Australia on her backpacking OE.

But tragedy struck just two weeks into her solo adventure in August last year when the quad bike she was riding plunged down a steep bank near Te Anga, 30km west of the Waitomo Caves.

Travelling in a tour group with the Waitomo Big Red company, Ms Bond was making her way along a narrow, rutted trail when the powerful 300cc bike lurched forward and to the left.

In what was described as a smooth, almost slow motion fall over the edge, the bike "just kept on going over and over" until coming to rest at the bottom of the gully, 30m below.

Ms Bond suffered serious internal injuries and died at the scene despite CPR from fellow tourists, then St John ambulance staff.

The fatal accident was investigated and eventually the Department of Labour laid charges against Waitomo Big Red for failing to take "all practicable steps to ensure that people are not harmed".

Investigators said the company failed to:

* Identify hazards like the steep slope off the side of the track.

* Erect barriers or fences at the site.

* Ensure warning signs were in place.

* Maintain the tracks.

Waitomo Big Red, run by the father-daughter combination of Bill and Sarah Johnston, defended the charges and after a two-day hearing at the Te Kuiti District Court in September Judge Arthur Tompkins agreed with them.

In a reserved decision released this week to the Weekend Herald, Judge Tompkins dismissed the charges and found that Waitomo Big Red ran a "careful and safety-conscious tour operation".

The ruling has disappointed Ms Bond's parents, Jack and Elizabeth, who have written to the Weekend Herald, the judge and the Department of Labour outlining their concerns.

They said their daughter set off as a tourist with a working visa on an adventure.

"She was returned to us less than two weeks later as cargo in a coffin," they said.

"The morning the police officer knocked on our door and told us that Sarah had been killed will live with us forever.

"We do know that this abrupt and tragic end to so vital a life could have, and should have, been avoided."

The Bond family understand that Judge Tompkins' ruling is guided by the law and say they have no reason to believe Waitomo Big Red is anything but a reputable business.

However, the couple believe one question has yet to be asked:

"We still don't hear anybody asking why she was guided on to a rutted track with a 25m to 30m drop in the first place."

But in terms of the Health and Safety in Employment Act, Judge Tompkins said there was no "hazard" which Waitomo Big Red should have identified.

He said the section of the track where the accident occurred was indistinguishable from many other parts of the trail.

"The slope where Ms Bond's accident occurred was not hidden or obscured and before entering this section of the track, the group had paused, regrouped and then proceeded slowly and in a reasonably closely spaced single file," said Judge Tompkins.

It had been raining on the day of the accident, with a police witness saying a four-wheel-drive truck was unable to traverse a section of the track close to where emergency services gathered.

None of the others on the tour said the track was wet, muddy or overly slippery, although a photo of Ms Bond - taken 15 minutes before she fell - shows her quad bike covered in mud.

In a tacit criticism, Judge Tompkins said the Department of Labour identified the hazard only after Ms Bond's fatal accident, despite a health and safety check the previous year.

But hazards, over which charges were laid, could not be identified with the benefit of hindsight under health and safety legislation, said Judge Tompkins.

"Particularly where, as here, tragically a young woman has died, it is understandable that an observer might reason that, ipso facto, there must have been, at the site of the fatality, a hazard that presented a risk that had been insufficiently guarded against," he said.

"But that understandable tendency must be resisted as it unjustifiably applies to the assessment of the existence of a hazard knowledge which, objectively, is not required by the act of someone in the position of the defendant company."

Judge Tompkins lauded the company's safety record of just one broken arm in a decade of tours and in particular described Sarah Johnston as "careful, thoughtful and diligent".

He also pointed out that riding a quad bike through rugged countryside was an adventure.

"Participants in such tours do not want or expect a sanitised, excitement-free experience that isolates or insulates them from the very countryside they come to see and experience first-hand.

"It is neither possible nor desirable to remove all risk. To do so would be to the longer term detriment of New Zealand."

Mr Bond put it differently.

"As far as we're concerned, it is page after page of justification for what can only be described as a missed opportunity to use this avoidable tragedy to improve an industry that is fast falling into disrepute."

Bill Johnston told the Weekend Herald he believed the family business had taken all the right precautionary steps.

However, he confirmed the company had closed down and he had taken up farming.

"We haven't got the bikes out since the accident. It's a little family business and you'd never want that to happen again, would you?"