St John New Zealand is sending the Toyota four-wheel-drive Land Cruisers, two from Queenstown and one each from Glenorchy and Wanaka, on the five-day journey from Auckland to Fiji. It will also send lifesaving clinical equipment in response to a call for aid from St John Fiji to its international ambulance counterparts. The vehicles, which are equipped with stretchers, will allow St John Fiji ambulance officers to navigate the island nation’s mountainous terrain to quickly locate, treat, and transport patients. The vehicles were being replaced in Otago with 4Motion all-wheel-drive Volkswagen first response units — otherwise known as rural ambulances. Two of the vehicles already in Auckland had been hot-swapped with the replacements as they were in-service ambulances, she said.

Source: Otago Daily Times July 13, 2021 16:30 UTC