{"id":517323,"date":"2026-07-09T09:35:11","date_gmt":"2026-07-09T09:35:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/517323\/"},"modified":"2026-07-09T09:35:11","modified_gmt":"2026-07-09T09:35:11","slug":"coroner-rules-wellington-man-rueben-james-vaaulis-death-self-inflicted-but-not-suicide","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/517323\/","title":{"rendered":"Coroner rules Wellington man Rueben-James Va\u2019auli\u2019s death self-inflicted, but not suicide"},"content":{"rendered":"
Va\u2019auli\u2019s brother said on the morning of November 17, 2023, he went into the sitting room where Va\u2019auli slept and saw the room was messy.<\/p>\n
He woke Va\u2019auli up and asked him to clean the room, but Va\u2019auli refused, leading to an argument that became physical.<\/p>\n
Va\u2019auli then \u201cstormed off\u201d out of the apartment block.<\/p>\n
His brother and grandfather reported hearing the sound of something breaking, but thought it was nearby construction workers.<\/p>\n
Residents of a neighbouring apartment heard someone shouting and found Va\u2019auli seriously injured. They called 111.<\/p>\n
Despite the neighbour telling the 111 operator she was concerned he was going to die, the seriousness of the situation was not initially recognised by the call-taker and an \u201corange\u201d response code was generated.<\/p>\n
About 10 minutes later, after the caller reported Va\u2019auli was unconscious and dying, a \u201cpurple\u201d immediate threat-to-life response code was issued.<\/p>\n
Less than 10 minutes later, paramedics arrived and tried to resuscitate him in an ambulance. <\/p>\n
He was taken to Wellington Hospital, where he was later pronounced dead.<\/p>\n
The scene in Strathmore Park, Wellington, where Rueben-James Va\u2019auli suffered his injuries.<\/p>\n
St John has acknowledged the incident was categorised incorrectly, and the seriousness of his situation was not recognised, the coroner said.<\/p>\n
The organisation had reviewed the incident and noted the call-taker was new to the role and has since received further training.<\/p>\n
Even if the 111 call had been coded correctly and the ambulance arrived more quickly, the outcome would not have changed, the coroner said.<\/p>\n
The coroner ruled that while Va\u2019auli \u201cintentionally inflicted\u201d injuries to himself, she was not satisfied he intended to take his own life, and it was therefore not a suicide.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Va\u2019auli\u2019s brother said on the morning of November 17, 2023, he went into the sitting room where Va\u2019auli…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":517324,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[3013,12629,634,1874,90345,16099,5158,111,43,139,5006,69,256886,6122,179362,8911,256887,52],"class_list":["post-517323","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-but","tag-coroner","tag-death","tag-found","tag-gentle","tag-kind","tag-man","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-not","tag-nz","tag-ruebenjames","tag-rules","tag-selfinflicted","tag-suicide","tag-vaaulis","tag-wellington"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/517323","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=517323"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/517323\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/517324"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=517323"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=517323"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=517323"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}