Two people are dead and four others injured - two critically, including a child - after a crash in Waikato yesterday afternoon.

The head of St John Ambulance has warned the Government it will stop sending some ambulances within two years because it can't guarantee patients' safety.

Marlene Dormer died as a lone ambulance officer struggled to keep her alive. Her daughter tells Martin Johnston that it's time to change an unsafe system.

Up to 12 fire trucks have been called out to the blaze on Ballymore Drive, in Pinehill, just after 4pm.

A woman who couldn't make a phone call asked for help on Reddit and a Kiwi reader came to the rescue.

A man in his 60s was flown to hospital after a near-drowning at New Chums Beach on the Coromandel Peninsula this afternoon.

An American couple involved in a fatal crash in South Waikato had been travelling on New Zealand roads for only a few days before the collision.

A Police spokeswoman said the suspicious item in Mission Bay was a small blue chilly bin with suspicious contents.

Twenty fire crews and a helicopter's been involved in the fire fight, which broke out on the hills behind Maidstone Park about 3:30 this afternoon.

A Coastguard skipper has described finding the man who clung to a petrol container for seven hours overnight after his boat capsized.

Emergency services were called to the speedway about 7pm, where the New Zealand Midget Championship is taking place this weekend.

A man was flown to hospital after being "bowled over by a cow" in Northland this afternoon, emergency services say.

A 56-year-old woman who spent a traumatic 14 hours trapped inside a lift "drew pictures and wrote poems" to keep herself calm.

Three people have been pulled out of the water in Raglan, after their boat overturned on the bar.

A Rotorua woman has been winched out of the Whakarewarewa Forest after a serious mountain bike accident.

Fire services have extinguished a grass fire in Onehunga which had consumed around 20 square metres of land.

One man is dead and another is in custody following a suspected homicide just north of Whangarei tonight.

One person was seriously injured this evening in a crash north of Wellington that closed the busy road in and out of the capital.

Two kayakers stuck in the mud in Waitemata Harbour - one up to his waist - have been rescued by a helicopter winching them to safety.

An Auckland woman was airlifted to hospital after falling 40 metres from a remote track in the Urewera National Park.

Police and emergency services were called to an address in Tairua in the Coromandel earlier today following the report of a shooting.

Searchers will return to the Waikato River at Taupo this morning after a man disappeared while swimming last night.

There are no suspicious circumstances surrounding the sudden death of a man despite initial reports of a neighbour claiming she heard someone yelling "I killed him".

A teenager is in hospital with critical head injuries, after falling off a cliff on Auckland's North Shore.

An unconscious man has been found in a critical condition in Auckland Domain overnight.

Wellington Police Inspector Marty Parker said the blaze had left buses damaged in the public bus company's fleet.

An electrical contractor has died at an egg farm in Masterton.

A factory building on Hobill Ave, Wiri is well ablaze according to the Fire Service.