RGHS girl hurt in smash dies

Kristin Macfarlane | 25th July 2010

A Year 13 Rotorua Girls' High School student who suffered brain damage in a road smash in Rotorua this week has died.

Kristi Ruri-Gardiner, 18, was taken off her life support at Waikato Hospital on Friday evening. She passed away shortly after 8pm surrounded by friends and family.

The 18-year-old was one of five girls in a Honda vehicle that was in collision with a Toyota Hilux utility just north of the Whakatane turn-off on State Highway 33 about 10am on Thursday. Four other Rotorua Girls' High School students - Cheyenne Grace, Bobby-Leigh Morrison, Tui Martin and Adrianne Martin-Ohlsen were also injured in the smash. Tui remains in a critical condition at Waikato Hospital.

The three other students remain in Rotorua Hospital. A passenger from the other vehicle involved, a four-wheel drive, was discharged from hospital yesterday.

"I got the call saying she had been in a crash and someone asked me how long it would take me to get there," Kristi's mother Karen Gardiner was reported as saying. "That's when I knew it was more serious than a few broken bones.

"I knew she wasn't coming back to us. I feel like it should have been me instead of her. I feel empty... devastated."

Rotorua Girls' High School principal Annette Joyce  said Kristi was a school prefect and a school champion in sports such as swimming and badminton.

Mrs Joyce said losing a student was difficult to deal with. 

She said Kristi was respected by her peers and would be missed.

 "She certainly added heaps to the life of the school and to the lives of all the girls that knew her."

She said Tui was "still battling".

Thursday's smash was the city's second serious crash in six days. Twelve Rotorua teenagers were injured when the van they were in crashed just south of Rotorua early last Saturday.

Friends and classmates of the students were inconsolable yesterday, Mrs Joyce said.

"I've been a principal for a long, long time and I've never had to deal with this before," Mrs Joyce said.

"We've had learning of a different nature in school, the sort of learning you wish you never had to do in a school. They're together and supporting each other and that is very important."
 

 The school ball, which was to have been held last night, has been postponed until August 21. Mrs Joyce said she wanted parents to be with their children.

A Rotorua parent said postponing the ball was a knee-jerk reaction that would only make things harder for students.

Kristi's funeral will be held at midday on Tuesday at Rotorua Arena.

 -Additional reporting Alison King