The daughter of a woman who died during an emergency callout did not know for months of problems with the equipment.

The 111 emergency number had been dialled - a 2-year-old boy had stopped breathing and was turning blue.

Emergency services are responding to a report of a person involved in a car, sinking in a body of water south of Te Puke.

The arrival of chief executive Peter Bradley has been balm to the often-troubled souls who work for St John.

A heavily pregnant woman was being taken by ambulance to hospital with a heart attack when the driver also suffered a cardiac arrest.

A 7-month-old Auckland boy on holiday with his family has died after being found in the water at the marina in Whitianga.

An alleged kidnapper who escaped police custody in Auckland has appeared in court this morning handcuffed and flanked by two police officers.

Police hunting a suspected kidnapper who escaped custody are door-knocking his known associates.

A 23-year-old man arrested over the violent kidnapping of an Auckland woman has escaped custody.

A woman was kidnapped and driven from Auckland to the Coromandel last night, with the offender assaulting her several times during the ordeal before she escaped.

Emergency services are on their way to Pukekawa, north of Huntly, where a light plane may have crashed this afternoon.

Surf lifesavers are scouring the water for remains after a woman in her 60s was killed by a shark near Tathra Wharf in New South Wales.

The New Zealand Transport Agency has offered its condolences to the family of an elderly New Plymouth woman who was killed when roadside rocks fell onto the car she was in.

Police are seeking information on the driver involved in a hit and run in Auckland this morning.

Two people are in hospital following a single-vehicle crash in King Country this morning.

A potential disaster was narrowly avoided at a Hamilton petrol station last night after an agitated man allegedly set fire to a car and assaulted a man.