New Zealand reporter captures dramatic photos, assists in woman’s rescue from sinking car

Caitlin Dickson
·Reporter
Rescuers plunge into the water to save a woman, whose car went into the water at Northcote Point on February 17, 2015 in Auckland, New Zealand. North Shore Police constables Paul Watts and Simon Russell say they were just doing their job after rescuing a woman from a sinking car the Waitemata Harbour. (Simon Maude/Fairfax Media via Getty Images)
Rescuers plunge into the water to save a woman, whose car went into the water at Northcote Point on February 17, 2015 in Auckland, New Zealand. North Shore Police constables Paul Watts and Simon Russell say they were just doing their job after rescuing a woman from a sinking car the Waitemata Harbour. (Simon Maude/Fairfax Media via Getty Images)

Coincidentally on assignment near Northcote Point in Auckland, New Zealand, when a woman in a BMW drove off the wharf and started sinking, newspaper reporter Simon Maude not only photographed the woman’s dramatic rescue but assisted in it as well.

“I was sort of battling my reporter instincts versus just being a human being and helping out,” Maude told Yahoo News. “When I got down there and saw what was happening, there were already four people in the water, so me getting in the water wasn’t going to help.”

Two police officers and two civilians jumped into the water to rescue the woman, who had managed to climb to an air pocket in the back seat of the quickly flooding car. But the doors would not open, and, as Constable Simon Russell later reported, the police officer’s baton was not enough to break through the car window.

“I saw the policemen having difficulty breaking the windows, so I put down my camera and asked them what they needed,” Maude, who works at Auckland’s North Shore Times, recalled over the phone from New Zealand. “They needed a rock, so I gave them one, and they went back to work and I went back to work.”

With that rock, the officers were able to successfully smash open the car’s back window and pull the woman safely to shore.

“It was pretty close, probably 30 or 40 seconds after we managed to get the female out of the car, the car was already slipping further into the water,” Constable Paul Watts told reporters later. “I’d say she probably only had maximum probably another minute, minute-and-a-half if she hadn’t gotten out.”

The woman, who has not been identified by name, was reportedly not injured, and New Zealand’s top law enforcement brass have praised the rescue by Watts, Russell and the two civilians. Maude’s photos, meanwhile, have been shared worldwide.

“It could’ve been anyone else, it was just plain chance that I was in the area,” Maude said. “In this day and age, everybody’s got a camera. It just happened to be me."

Related Video: