A sad end to a police patrol

Britton Brown at the Dom Post reports:

An MP on patrol with police spent almost 40 minutes trying to keep a shot camper alive, then stayed through the night to support the woman’s distraught partner.

Louise Upston, National MP for Taupo, was with police in Turangi on Friday night to see at first hand the harm caused by alcohol when they were called to the shooting of Lower Hutt teacher Rosemary Ives, 25, about 11pm.

Ms Ives was standing next to her partner, Adam Hyndman, brushing her teeth at the Kaimanawa campsite south of Turangi when she was killed. A 25-year-old Hamilton hunter has been charged with careless use of a firearm in relation to her death.

Mrs Upston said that, when she arrived with police, they found Mr Hyndman giving mouth-to-mouth resuscitation while a female camper did chest compressions.

Mrs Upston took over the compressions so the other woman could rest, sharing the work until paramedics arrived about 40 minutes later.

“You don’t think, `Will I or won’t I?’, you just get in there and do what needs to be done,” she said. “You become desperate, basically. All of us wanted to do our absolute best to pull [Ms Ives] through. Unfortunately, her injuries were substantial and what we did do was probably never going to be enough.”

She kept thinking about how Mr Hyndman must be feeling, staying by his side after Ms Ives was confirmed dead. She remained with him at Taupo police station until 8am.

About 20 years ago she witnessed her mother’s death while her brother tried CPR, which helped her relate to Mr Hyndman.

“He was devastated … they had just gone to clean their teeth. They’d gone a couple of metres into the bush so you wouldn’t spit out in the area you are going to be sleeping in.”

As an MP, out on patrol with the Police (a quite common occurrence as Police like MPs seeing first hand what they have to cope with), you’re probably thinking the worst you will see is some drunk teens – instead you end up in the middle of this tragic shooting.

Everyone who knows Rosemary Ives will be in mourning, but you do have to feel extra sympathy for Adam Hyndman – to see your girlfriend shot down in front of you must be horrifying, let alone working so hard and for so long to try and keep her alive.