New Year's Eve is a time for celebration, but for St John, it's one of the busiest nights of the year.
St John assistant operations director Tony Devanney told RadioLIVE on Monday about how he and his team coped with the revellers.
"We had planned for the worst, and were expecting the worst - but it was actually okay and manageable."
He attributed this to people being "more self-aware, they realise we are a limited resource. People are generally sensible."
Despite Mr Devanney saying the night was not overly remarkable, the numbers speak for themselves.
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"From 6pm, we were up to 50 incidents an hour. That ramped up at about 11pm to 90 an hour and peaked at midnight. That continued to 3am, but after that it dropped back down to 50 incidents an hour".
The "hot areas" according to Mr Devanney were Auckland central, followed by Hamilton, Mt Maunganui and Christchurch.
Intoxication and unconsciousness made up 13 percent of the calls.
"A lot of falls, probably due to alcohol, and assaults sadly was 9 percent [of the calls]. Then overdoses and poisonings, then cardiac then trauma."
Mr Devanney said although St John's was able to cope with the influx of incidents, that "on those sorts of numbers [of calls] we're stretched".
The new year may be here, but Mr Devanney's work is far from over - incident levels are "not quite [back to] normal, we're always busy on the first and second of Jan. It's not just New Year's Eve - it's a few days after it as well."
Newshub.
