Massey shooting: Paramedics recall tending to injured people

2:24 pm on 13 July 2021

Paramedics have described arriving at a chaotic scene in Auckland last June, after the shooting of two police officers who had been carrying out a routine traffic stop.

Warning: This story contains some graphic detail and may be distressing to readers.

Eli Epiha on trial at the Auckland High Court.

Eli Epiha on trial at the Auckland High Court. Photo: RNZ / Nick Monro

Eli Epiha appeared in the High Court in Auckland, where he has pleaded guilty to murdering constable Matthew Hunt and dangerous driving causing injury.

He also admits shooting Hunt's colleague David Goldfinch, but denies it was attempted murder.

Epiha is on trial before Justice Venning and a jury.

This morning St John officer Joanne Stewart recounted finding Goldfinch lying on the ground on Reynella Drive in Massey, with a graze on his hip and two "jagged" looking puncture wounds on his leg.

Jurors were shown pictures of the injuries.

Stewart said paramedics had been called to the scene and warned an armed offender may still be in the area.

Stewart recalled seeing armed police, civilians, and dogs around her as she tended to Goldfinch.

"He was calling out in pain but we managed to get him up off the floor by supporting him on either side, onto the stretcher," she said.

At hospital, she said paramedics avoided letting Goldfinch see his colleague Matthew Hunt, who they were trying to revive.

St John Ambulance paramedic Kathryn Jackson found Hunt flat-lining when she first arrived at Reynella Drive, where other police officers had been performing CPR on him.

In a statement read out in court, she said she helped give him ECG, fluids and shots of adrenaline at the scene, and on the way to hospital.

He was pronounced dead at hospital.

Emergency medical technician Trent Hirst tended to a member of the public hit by a car during the incident.

In a statement, he said the man had been putting luggage into the boot of his car, before embarking on a family trip to Rotorua.

He said the man could not recall exactly what had happened, except that he was leaning into the car and then being dragged back into the driveway by his wife.

Hirst said the man was alert and conscious but bleeding from his head.

The trial is expected to take up to three weeks.