Dr Craig Ellis

Deputy Medical Director, St John Ambulance New Zealand

Dr Craig Ellis is a Specialist Prehospital and  Emergency Physician based in Hawke’s Bay New Zealand. He splits his time between working as Deputy Medical Director for St John New Zealand, who deliver the Emergency Ambulance Service for (almost) all of New Zealand and as a Senior Staff Specialist in the Emergency Department of the Hawkes Bay Regional Hospital. He is regularly involved in primary emergency responses by both road and rotary wing. His interests are in anaphylaxis, clinical risk mitigation, prehospital critical care and austere/remote medical practice.   He is married to an Intensive Care Medicine Physician and has three beautiful children.

Whakaari / White Island Eruption: The First 6 Hours
I was the on-call Medical Director for St John on the afternoon of the 9th of December. At 1427hrs I was rung by our Clinical Co-ordination desk and advised that White Island had erupted and there were “100 status 1 and 2 patients 50km off-shore” and no further details were available. The afternoon unfolded from there. In this presentation I will provide an overview of the initial pre-hospital phase of care of the patients involved in the White Island eruption covering both the time-line and the good and the bad of how things unfolded.

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