A busy day for rescue helicopters in Tongariro National Park yesterday. A hiker with a broken leg had to be piggy-backed down past Blue Lake to get below the cloud for our Greenlea helicopter to pluck her off the trail (see the video). Greenlea and other helicopters also picked up a number of injured runners from the Ring of Fire Around the Mountain Race. Rescue helicopters, in their air pre-hospital emergency care ambulance roles are so busy around the Taupo and Ruapehu districts, that perhaps NASO has got it backwards. Perhaps, intead of discounting Taupo as an air ambulance base, NASO should be considering Taupo as THE air ambulance base for the Central North island, with not one but a number of small capable aircraft capable of meeting the demand...interested to hear your thoughts on this... At the time of writing this update, our petition was around 8400 signatures - an amazing effort!! Please keep sharing the link and encouraging more people to sign...it is literally lifesaving. At the same time it is important that we continue to register our concerns with and display our support for those elected officials who are helping fight this battle: please contact your MPs, councillors, community board members (regardless of where you may live in New Zealand: ultimately we want a great air ambulance service across New Zealand) and register your concerns with them. Encourage them to contact the Ministers of Health and ACC directly to support Taupo and Rotorua and air ambulance bases and to make sure we get the national air ambulance service we need... Keep up the fight...