Sixteen years ago Adrian Hurst thought he was watching his daughter die after a horrific car crash.
Instead what he watched was a group of flight paramedics helping to save her life.
He was inspired to become one of them and now works for the Canterbury West Coast Air Rescue Trust, which is hoping to raise $100,000 this Christmas to support their life-saving missions.
Adrian's daily mahi involves life-saving rescues. But it was watching the life-saving rescue of his own daughter that inspired him to want the job of an inflight paramedic.
"We were coming home from doing the shopping, just a normal night... coming around the corner and there was a car coming towards us on our lane, and he hit us head-on," he told Newshub.
The accident punctured his pregnant wife's lung but did far worse to his not even two-year-old daughter.
"Turned around and saw Ava in her seat and she was slumped forward and not breathing," Adrian told Newshub.
At the time Adrian was a St John volunteer. He resuscitated her on the scene before help arrived.
"Within about 45 seconds she started breathing, but she was completely unconscious still," he said.
It turned out Ava had internal decapitation. Her neck had broken away from her skull.
She was flown to Christchurch Hospital by the Canterbury West Coast Air Rescue Trust.
"They came up to us about an hour later and said, 'we're not sure if she's going to make it'," Adrian said.
Then she was flown on to Starship in Auckland.
"Your child has just almost died, or could still die. Everything just stopped," he said.
"Not many people in New Zealand had actually survived the type of injury I had," Ava added.
But after 12 weeks in hospital, titanium in her neck, and now 12 operations on her body, 18-year-old Ava is thriving.
"I've done swimming over the years... I've done rock climbing... I've done skiing, skating, horse riding - you name it, I've probably done it," she told Newshub.
And that fateful day helped form Adrian's goal to be an inflight paramedic. Now, 16 years later, he's got a full-time job on the Westpac Rescue helicopter.
The paramedic who treated Ava on the day of their crash is now Adrian's boss.
"He was the one on the day who rescued Ava," Adrian said.
"He hasn't left after 16 years, still here," Ava added.
Ava now has her own dreams.
"I'd like to help people in the future realise that a disability is not the end of the road, you can still do so much," she said.
The family that turned their worst day into creating a future to help others.
"You can dwell on what's happened and become stagnant but that's going to help nobody," Adrian said.
To help save lives like Ava's you can make a donation via this page.
