Former Olympian Dave Rodger faces driver who nearly killed him on road works site

Belinda Feek, Open Justice reporter of

By Belinda Feek, Open Justice reporter of

A former Olympian critically injured by a man who ran him down at a Waikato road works site is ready to focus on his rehabilitation now that the driver has been sent to prison.

Dave Rodger, an Olympic rower, was a senior traffic management supervisor with Fulton Hogan on 11 January this year when Matamata man Finn Higgins came speeding through the site, swerving between machines and knocking over road cones, after an argument at a nearby wheelie bin hire business.

Several road workers restrained Higgins until he calmed down after he pulled over and "some level of an altercation" played out.

He then got back in his car - which also had his two infant children inside - and turned around, and drove back through the site before deliberately running down Rodger, who was standing in what is dubbed in traffic management as "the dead zone".

The dead zone is the area, up to 30m, immediately after which traffic has been cordoned off.

Higgins narrowly missed another worker and Rodger, a father-of-three, bore the full brunt of the impact and was thrown backward through the air about 10m.

His injuries were so severe that Crown solicitor Jacinda Hamilton told Justice Gerard Van Bohemen in the High Court at Hamilton this morning, that police were ready to declare a homicide investigation.

But through his persistence and the benefits of strength from fitness, the 69-year-old pulled through and was able to walk with the aid of crutches into the courtroom and tell Higgins what he'd endured the past nine months.

Rodger's body was littered with fractures along with numerous internal injuries many of which will stay with him for life.

"With the immediate work undertaken by medical staff, they put me in the category of 'lucky to be here'," he said.

"Due to nerve damage in the right leg I am unable to have controlled movement in my right foot and toes, lack of feeling, and uncontrolled pain.

"Not how I perceived I would spend the rest of my life, relying on walking aids or a mobility scooter."

He spent four months in hospital and often had operations every second day.

"The process to learn again, to stand up, was the most painful experience in life and the energy expended to walk 20m was beyond what I could do."

He now faces a recovery time of up to three years with no guarantee of a full recovery.

Speaking up for 'at risk' road workers

Outside court, Rodger said he stood in court to tell his story on behalf of all road workers who were continually put at risk.

He said he didn't like to see someone "locked away that long for a stupid act, but it was his choice".

"It's not closure because there's still everything going [on] but it just means that I can concentrate on my own rehabilitation.

"The important thing is ... that road workers are at risk every day from random things like that. Temporary speed limits and things like that they're there for a reason and if everybody just slows down ... then people like myself don't get helicopter rides."

Rodger took part in the 1976 Olympics, while he and his wife, Dianne, a runner, both competed in the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles and were the first husband and wife to compete for New Zealand at the same Olympic Games.

'I'm going to murder you'

The background to the incident involved Higgins signing a 12-month contract with Wheelie Bin Services, in Waharoa, for a wheelie bin rubbish collection.

On 10 January this year, he returned to the company's offices at Mowatt St and asked a staff member for a refund due to financial constraints.

The victim said she couldn't refund him as she didn't have the authority to approve it and asked him to return to the office the next day to speak with her supervisor.

Higgins went back the next day, with two of his children, to speak with the manager, but when he returned, the first victim said her boss had just left.

Hearing the news, Higgins immediately fired up and began screaming and shouting at the victim, telling her he was going to "murder her" and shouting "Sieg heil".

Another employee signalled for help to one of the company's truck drivers, who had just arrived on site.

Higgins went outside, walked up to him, and punched him hard in the neck with a closed fist, causing him to fall onto a nearby car, then got back into his car with his children. He reversed into a parked truck then drove off at high speed.

He then ended up on Dunlop Rd and shortly afterward struck down Rodger in a rage.

Crown solicitor Hamilton pushed for an eight-year starting point on the charge of wounding with intent to cause grievous bodily harm with uplifts for the additional charges, and offending while on a sentence of supervision.

"This is an event where the defendant targeted an unknown and vulnerable road worker driving at him in a completely unprovoked attack causing him life-threatening and lasting injury.

"His life will never be the same."

Hamilton stressed this was a situation where Rodger was a road worker undertaking an inherently dangerous job and was heavily reliant on road users to comply with safety precautions and speed on the work site.

"He had done all that he could do to ensure that he was safe. He had moved to what's called the 'dead zone' out of the way of the driver in an area where he was entitled to feel protected," she said.

"The reality is, he was completely defenceless when the defendant chose to swerve toward him."

'He was in a drug-fuelled rage'

Defence counsel Charles Bean handed the court a letter of remorse from Higgins and said although it came late it didn't mean it was worth any less.

While Bean accepted Rodger was vulnerable, he said the situation was more akin to a pedestrian being struck by a vehicle.

He asked the judge not to include being vulnerable due to his occupation as an aggravating factor.

"It's still a pedestrian versus a motor vehicle and the pedestrian will always come off second best, and it's tragic, but I'm urging you not to double count because of his vocation.

"I would call it a drug-fuelled rage and so has my client."

Higgins had come off his ADHD medication and was using drugs, and was "having an episode of extreme violence fuelled by the substances he had been taking".

However, Hamilton told Justice Van Bohemen that a blood test revealed only cannabis in Higgins's system at the time, "nothing else".

'I'm trying to be a better Christian'

Justice Van Bohemen labelled Higgins' actions that day as "appalling" with Rodger now considering himself lucky to be alive.

Higgins had told a pre-sentence report writer that the wheelie bin company was "being unfair because they didn't like your partner's family".

"You say this was a drug-fuelled rage. The blood tests don't support that."

Higgins reported he was now "trying to be a better Christian" but the judge said he had a criminal history bearing violence offending and that had to be taken into account.

Justice Van Bohemen jailed Higgins for six years and one month and disqualified him from driving for two years, effective once he was released from prison.

This story was originally published by the New Zealand Herald.