{"id":578285,"date":"2026-08-23T23:56:22","date_gmt":"2026-08-23T23:56:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/578285\/"},"modified":"2026-08-23T23:56:22","modified_gmt":"2026-08-23T23:56:22","slug":"an-absolute-waste-police-officer-remains-in-icu-after-being-hit-by-vehicle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/578285\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018An absolute waste\u2019: Police officer remains in ICU after being hit by vehicle"},"content":{"rendered":"
On Monday, Central District Commander Superintendent Dion Bennett told Morning Report the officer was in a stable condition but remained on a ventilator.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a time [to] wait and see as time heals him.\u201d<\/p>\n
Bennett said the two people in the vehicle that allegedly hit the officer are 14 and 15 years old.<\/p>\n
They are facing a \u201craft of charges\u201d, including theft of a vehicle and reckless driving causing injury \u2013 an offence that carried \u201csignificant and serious penalty\u201d, he said.<\/p>\n
Bennett said despair came to mind when he thought about the injured men.<\/p>\n
The police officers were struck on Kairanga Bunnythorpe Rd, just outside Palmerston North, early on Saturday morning. Image \/ Google Maps <\/p>\n
\u201cI stood at the bedside of our officer yesterday with his family and as we watched and listened to the machines whirring and uh, you stand there and think \u2018what an absolute waste\u2019. This could be avoided. The behaviour of the drivers in both incidents is not acceptable and this is a tragic event for the two families involved but also for all of Manawat\u016b.\u201d<\/p>\n
Bennett said police staff were \u201cgetting on with business and acting professional\u201d.<\/p>\n
However, there was a sadness hanging over the officer\u2019s team and wider team \u201cas we wait for some positive news about how he\u2019s doing and whether his recovery is going to be successful\u201d.<\/p>\n
Injured man remains in ICU<\/p>\n
Bennett said the man hit by a vehicle in Fielding also remained in the intensive care unit (ICU) on a ventilator.<\/p>\n
He said two separate inquiries were being carried out and would determine if the incidents were connected.<\/p>\n
At this stage, it didn\u2019t appear they were \u2013 with one incident involving a fleeing driver and the other involving \u201canti-social illegal road users\u201d.<\/p>\n
Bennett told Morning Report the region had a history of serious and violent interactions with boy racers and it wasn\u2019t a challenge police would back away from.<\/p>\n
He said police were keen to hear from anyone with information about the driver who fled the Feilding scene.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"On Monday, Central District Commander Superintendent Dion Bennett told Morning Report the officer was in a stable condition…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":578286,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[12617,74,8831,682,3595,3594,65186,78,1304,111,43,139,69,10932,675,10715,1560,6845,25361],"class_list":["post-578285","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-absolute","tag-after","tag-an","tag-being","tag-by","tag-hit","tag-icu","tag-in","tag-morning","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-officer","tag-police","tag-remains","tag-report","tag-vehicle","tag-waste"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/578285","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=578285"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/578285\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/578286"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=578285"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=578285"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=578285"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}