WARNING: Contains images that may be confronting.
The St John ambulance officer killed in a head-on crash is being remembered as a treasured part of the community.
The two-vehicle crash involved a car and an ambulance at about 3:40am on Wednesday, claiming the lives of both drivers.
Hato Hone St John deputy chief executive ambulance operations Dan Ohs paid tribute to the staff member who died after giving 55 years of service to the organisation.
"What I can tell you is they gave 55 years of service to St John, starting off in youth. They were an ambulance officer for 27 years," he told AM host Bernadine Oliver-Kerby on Thursday.
"This person had seen more in the community than you and I could imagine. They had been honoured in 2004 by becoming a member of the Order of St John and they were very active in the Lakes community in both the event health services, patient transport services and the emergency ambulance service and her loss is being felt very, very deeply by us here at Hato Hone St John."
The circumstances of the crash are still being investigated but Ohs revealed to AM there were no signs of "distress" before the accident.
"What happened is one of our patient transport ambulances was returning without a patient from Waikato going to Rotorua," he told AM.
"We don't know exactly what happened. What I can tell you is we know that there were no indications of distress or any trouble from the ambulance crew. All of a sudden, we took a 111 call indicating that one of our ambulances had been involved in a collision."
Ohs said the crash was a head-on collision between the ambulance and another motor vehicle.
"The driver of the other motor vehicle was deceased at the scene. Our driver, on the arrival of our ambulance crews, was critically injured and had to have a lot of very high-level intervention, both from our ambulance crews and from the local Westpac Rescue Helicopter crew," he told AM.
Ohs revealed good news about the second staff member travelling in the ambulance.
"There was a nurse travelling with us, so these ambulances, they normally travel with a Hato Hono St John ambulance officer and an escort which is typically a nurse from a local hospital," Ohs said.
"That nurse was seriously injured or assessed by us as being seriously injured at the scene, but I am pleased to report that we're told that she's now in a stable condition, which is fantastic."
Ohs said it's a "tough time" for St John's and they are "absolutely devastated" by the loss of their colleague.
"Our team, they are very adept at managing the grief of people in the community. They're very adept at managing trauma and of course, it's our role to go out there in the community and reduce the impact of road trauma," he told AM.
"So this is very significant for us. It's different. Our people are processing this differently, we are seeing them come together, we are seeing them have kai together and of course, we are providing as much support to our people and the whānau of the deceased person as much as we can."
Waka Kotahi said safety improvements on the road are on the way, but the Waikato Chamber of Commerce's CEO Don Good said they've heard that for years.
"Today's fatality is unacceptable. It and future accidents could be preventable if this current Government would measure the urgency to upgrade this stretch of road in terms of people's lives and wellbeing rather than in dollars," Good said.
"An unacceptable number of lives have been lost and others seriously injured on this stretch of road. Road users, local residents and Chambers have appealed for urgent action for the right safety measures to be put in place and have been ignored."
