Parking assessor decides cardiac arrest warrants discount, not cancellation
August 19, 2026
Summarised by Centrist
A woman whose heart stopped in an Auckland supermarket car park was issued an $80 parking breach notice because her vehicle remained there while she was taken to hospital.
When her family explained what had happened, the private parking company refused to cancel the charge. It decided her cardiac arrest warranted a $50 discount instead.
The 54-year-old collapsed outside New World Ōrewa on July 26. Other shoppers rushed to help, including a stranger who began chest compressions after a pulse could no longer be found.
Paramedics later told the woman’s father that her heart had stopped and she had momentarily been “technically dead”. She was revived and taken by ambulance to North Shore Hospital.
Her car, understandably overlooked during the emergency, remained in the supermarket car park for 341 minutes. Customers are permitted to park there for 90 minutes.
The site is monitored by Smart Compliance Management, a private parking enforcement business using automatic number-plate recognition cameras. Its automated system recorded the overstay and an $80 notice was subsequently sent to the woman.
The family appealed and explained the circumstances. Smart Compliance declined to withdraw the notice, reducing it to $30 instead.
That decision cannot readily be blamed on an unthinking camera system. The company says every appeal is “individually assessed by a trained appeals assessor” who considers the site rules and applies “a common sense approach”.
Staff at New World later reimbursed the woman for the remaining charge. The supermarket’s owner-operator apologised for the additional distress, while Smart Compliance conceded its initial response had not “appropriately” considered the circumstances.
The company apologised only after the case attracted media attention. It said the notice would be withdrawn and the payment refunded.
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