A jetboat operator has been ordered to pay $270,000 for taking tourists on sightseeing boat trips which resulted in three passengers breaking their backs.
InterCity Group (ICG) earlier pleaded guilty to two charges of failing to take all practical steps to ensure their employees' actions did not harm anyone.
Auckland resident Petulia Patey and her best friend Amanda Lee broke their backs during the holiday jetboat trip in the Bay of Islands in January last year.
The second charge relates to an incident two months later that left Brisbane health worker Jan Phillips with broken vertebrae.
In Auckland District Court today, Judge Phil Gittos ordered the company to pay Mrs Lee and Ms Phillips $45,000 and Mrs Patey, whose injuries were the most severe, $60,000.
He also ordered it to pay fines of $50,000 for the first incident and $70,000 for the second.
Mrs Patey earlier told the court she was instructed to sit in the back of the boat before it hit two big waves. She became airborne on both occasions and suffered a piercing pain in her back.
"The pain was like nothing I had experienced before,'' she said.
Other passengers were screaming at the skipper to stop the boat.
Her back was broken and an MRI scan showed she was lucky not to be paralysed.
She spent the next four months lying down and has been told she is likely to suffer pain for the rest of her life.
Mrs Lee, who was visiting from London for the wedding of Mrs Patey's daughter, said the trauma and emotional toll resulting from the incident had been "devastating''.
In Ms Phillips' statement, which was also read to the court last month, she said when she took the boat ride she had every reason to believe it was safe.
"It seems the company had every opportunity to rectify previous problems on this boat and did not do so, choosing to risk major harm to customers like myself for profit.''
