{"id":593836,"date":"2026-09-08T11:26:11","date_gmt":"2026-09-08T11:26:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/593836\/"},"modified":"2026-09-08T11:26:11","modified_gmt":"2026-09-08T11:26:11","slug":"head-injury-recovery-could-take-time-for-officer-hit-by-fleeing-driver","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/593836\/","title":{"rendered":"Head injury recovery ‘could take time’ for officer hit by fleeing driver"},"content":{"rendered":"

The police officer critically injured after being hit by a fleeing vehicle while laying spikes near Palmerston North last month is making progress in his recovery, police said.<\/p>\n

The officer was struck by a vehicle on Kairanga Bunnythorpe Rd at around 2am on August 22<\/a> and thrown several metres. <\/p>\n

He was airlifted to Wellington Hospital in a critical condition, where he remains in the neurology ward with a traumatic head injury.<\/p>\n

In an update today, Superintendent Dion Bennett said he had visited the family on Monday.<\/p>\n

“He is surrounded by his family and in the care of medical staff,” he said.<\/p>\n

“He sustained a traumatic head injury during the incident and although he is making progress, his recovery could take some time.”<\/p>\n

The officer was laying road spikes near Palmerston North when the vehicle, allegedly stolen and carrying two teens, struck him and another officer. (Source: 1News)<\/p>\n

Bennett said the treatment would be ongoing and that he would be moving to a specialist medical facility for head injury recovery.<\/p>\n

“His wider police family continue to support him and his loved ones.”<\/p>\n

Two teenagers, aged 14 and 15, have been charged over the crash. The older boy is accused of wounding with reckless disregard and reckless driving causing injury.<\/p>\n

The pair, who have automatic name suppression due to their age, are due to reappear in the Palmerston North Youth Court next month.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The police officer critically injured after being hit by a fleeing vehicle while laying spikes near Palmerston North…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":593837,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[67,42,31044,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-593836","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-crime-and-justice","tag-headlines","tag-manawatu-wanganui","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/593836","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=593836"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/593836\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/593837"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=593836"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=593836"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=593836"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}