Police are appealing to people in the Rotorua/Taupo area to help them identify a young man who made a hoax call to the 111 call centre.
The caller phoned 111 at 10:30am on the 29th of August telling police he had stolen a car that had crashed and his passenger was bleeding badly and dying.
He went on to say he was so traumatised he was going to have to commit suicide.
Audio portion of hoax call MP3, 204KB
He indicated to police he was driving north to Auckland when he crashed - about half an hour out of Taupo.
Police, Fire and Ambulance all responded to the call.
Emergency services looked for the crash for almost two hours before deciding it was a hoax call.
"We would really like someone to identify this person for us, so we can locate and speak to him", said Northern Communications Centre Shift Inspector, Scott Webb.
"Police were deeply concerned someone was seriously injured and may die if we didn’t find the crash fast enough, many staff worked for a long time on this and it was very frustrating that it turned out to be a hoax".
"We don’t want the system to be abused like this, so we have launched an inquiry into his identity and hope this sends a message that we take this very seriously".
There is a small audio sample of the call available to listen to - if anyone has any information regarding the identity of this man they can call their local police station and ask to be put through to Inspector Scott Webb at the Police Northern Communications Centre.
Audio portion of hoax call MP3, 204KB
Issued by:
Andi DevlinPolice 111 Call Centre(09)-571-2851