NEWS FOR WOMEN Woman Ambulance Driver Retires After 15 Years

Press, Volume XCI, Issue 27679, 8 June 1955, Page 2

NEWS FOR WOMEN Woman Ambulance Driver Retires After 15 Years

“The Press” Special Service

ROTORUA, June 7. Mrs Edith Knap, of Rotorua, believed to be thd only full-time woman ambulance driver in New Zealand, has handed in her resignation to the St. John Ambulance Brigade. For the last 15 years she has attended emergencies in a wide area around the Rotorua district. Mrs Knap, who describes her age as “in the late 50’s,” has been a wellknown personality in Rotorua since she started driving at the beginning of 1942. When the war ended she found herself with an elderly ambulance and one of the biggest ambulance districts in New Zealand to cope with alone. Carrying more than 500 patients a year from Tokaanu, the Ureweras, Taupo, Rotorua and surrounding districts, she was almost continuously on the road. The establishment of an ambulance at Taupo five years ago eased the position a little, but she has always been on call 24 hours a day and seven days a week.

The two ambulances housed in a green garage near Mrs Knap’s house are her pride and joy. Since she gained her automotive engineer’s examination ; and started driving she has never even scratched a mudguard, *a contradiction i to popular belief about women drivers. With at least 25 sawmills in her area > and sometimes three or four accidents a day on her hands, Mr Knap admits she has been a busy woman. She has > always handled the transfers from Rotorua to Auckland and Hamilton

hospitals, and thinks nothing of a fourhour drive to Auckland and back again as half a day’s work. Dr. E H. Bridgeman, medical superintendent of the Rotorua Hospital, said that Mrs Knap had given invaluable service to Rotorua and surrounding districts “If ever anyone deserved the -gratitude of the community it is this amazing woman, who has done an almost incredibly difficult job, and all for the love of it,” he said.

Accident victims who have been carried to hospital by Mrs Knap seldom forget her interest in their welfare and at Christmas time she is usually “swamped” by parcels from grateful patients. Only once has a patient expressed concern that the ambulance was driven by a woman, and he complimented her on her driving when he reached hospital. In the early post-war years Mrs Knap drove her ambulance over rough tracks and muddy fields in back areas which were just on the eve of advancement. Today the roads have improved, but the accidents are even more frequent. Her work has not passed unnoticed. She has two medals from the Queen to mark her years of voluntary service.

Manjr babies have come into the world in Mrs Knap’s ambulance, but some of her passengers have been beyond human aid. Her job has been an interesting one, and she gives it up with regret, a regret that is shared by the community she has served.