Editorial: Thieves lacking moral fibre

Greg Taipari is sickened that thieves stole equipment from an ambulance in Western Heights.

Before joining the Rotorua Daily Post, I spent five years as a volunteer and a paid ambulance officer with the St John Ambulance Service.

It was a time I will remember fondly, from helping to give birth, through to the drama of having to help save lives at a traffic accident.

The skills I learnt during that time have been invaluable and even helped me to communicate with members of the public, throughout my time at the paper.

Many of those who join the service do it because they want to help people, and while that was a motivating factor for me, one of the things that attracted me to the service was being able to race to an emergency with lights and sirens going hoping to save a life.

So it sickens me to read that some unscrupulous people stole equipment from an ambulance while its officers were treating a patient inside a Western Heights home on Saturday.

Thankfully, no life-saving equipment was stolen, although those responsible did take a bag containing some of the crew members' uniforms.

While it was only clothes taken, the act of stealing from someone who is helping others is deplorable.

Whoever is responsible should be ashamed of their actions, although I doubt the moral fibre of someone who would stoop so low and suspect they would have little regard for their actions and how they would affect other people. While there may be some who will think the crew should have had the foresight to lock the vehicle, it's not always practical - often the crew may need to ask a member of the public to go into the vehicle to grab some equipment while the officer is treating a patient.

Although St John Rotorua territory manager Hilary MorrishAllen said thefts from ambulances were not uncommon within the service, let's just hope this was an isolated incident.