Why You Should Spare A Moment For Our Emergency Services This Weekend

It’s a long weekend!

Thanks to good old Queen Liz, many of us are launching into three days of festivities, adventures or couch-potato-ing. But not everyone’s off the hook. Our emergency services don’t get a break.

It is so easy to get annoyed at the cops when you get a speeding ticket because they lower threshold for public holidays, or when noise control busts your Sunday night party. But please, this long weekend, remember what our emergency services have to go through every day.

Earlier this week, a two year old girl was tragically shot dead in South Auckland. Police had to respond and work out the best thing to do in such horrific circumstances.

Ambulance, police are fire crews are called out to car crashes pretty much every day. In 2014, emergency services attended 268 fatal crashes. Last Queen’s Birthday Weekend, five people died on New Zealand roads.

Our Fire Service is just as busy – in 2015, crews responded to almost 62 house fires every week with a total of more than 3,200 for the year. And that’s just house fires – it’s not including the hundreds of road, commercial and forest blazes the Service also gets called out to.

So please, while you’re enjoying a well-deserved break this long weekend, spare a thought for our emergency services. They don’t get to laze around with their friends and family. They don’t get to go away to a bach for the weekend. They’re out there, looking out for New Zealand.

Photos / Getty Images