{"id":433111,"date":"2026-05-18T09:00:09","date_gmt":"2026-05-18T09:00:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/433111\/"},"modified":"2026-05-18T09:00:09","modified_gmt":"2026-05-18T09:00:09","slug":"one-person-dead-after-waikato-expressway-crash-near-pokeno-sh1-southbound-lanes-blocked","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/433111\/","title":{"rendered":"One person dead after Waikato Expressway crash near P\u014dkeno, SH1 southbound lanes blocked"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cThere were two cars in front of me and a truck, and we all had to swerve out of the way,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cSuddenly there were headlights right in front of me, it was terrifying.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hayley said the car was weaving through lanes at speed – \u201cdefinitely over 110km\/h\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not sure how they made it that far,\u201d she added, describing the road as \u201cvery busy\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cI definitely panicked because my son was in the car and I was worried about him.\u201d<\/p>\n

She said she and other motorists did not stop after the near miss, but once she got home the seriousness of the situation hit her.<\/p>\n

\u201cI just thought, \u2018That was crazy because that could have been me.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Hato Hone St John said three ambulances, two operations managers, a rapid response unit and a helicopter were sent to the crash site.<\/p>\n

A spokesperson later said two patients were treated at the scene, with one person with critical injuries airlifted to Auckland City Hospital.<\/p>\n

Another patient was taken to Waikato Hospital in a moderate condition.<\/p>\n

NZTA said SH1 southbound lanes remain blocked between Great South Rd and Pioneer Rd.<\/p>\n

Motorists were advised to avoid the area.<\/p>\n

More to come…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cThere were two cars in front of me and a truck, and we all had to swerve out…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":433112,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[74,28648,3549,690,6179,19555,38121,3950,3180,111,43,139,69,5270,4056,42567,37229,48215,1961,46403,1524],"class_list":["post-433111","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-after","tag-blocked","tag-crash","tag-dead","tag-died","tag-evening","tag-expressway","tag-lanes","tag-near","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-one","tag-person","tag-pkeno","tag-sh1","tag-southbound","tag-this","tag-threevehicle","tag-waikato"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/433111","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=433111"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/433111\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/433112"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=433111"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=433111"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=433111"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}