‘Fiery deaths ahead’: The car crash that changed Shortland Street forever

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Shortland Street publicists and producers stayed tight-lipped, but the media chatter continued. The NZ Woman’s Weekly, Truth, TV Guide and Sunday News all covered the storyline, each trying to predict who would cark it. Truth even dedicated an entire front page (“Shortland St Shocker!”) to the storyline, as well as a full-page article (“Street shock!”) announcing that Martin Henderson and Angela Dotchin’s characters (Stuart Neilson and Kirsty Knight) would be the unlucky victims.

Those particular rumours became so persistent that the cast themselves made the rare move of getting involved. In February, a month before the episodes aired, the Sunday Star printed a photo of Dotchin wearing a white T-shirt with “NOT” printed on the back, confirming she and Henderson weren’t leaving the show. “Angela Dotchin and Martin Henderson have had it!” the accompanying item read. “We’re here to stay, and we’ve even got the T-shirts to prove it.”

It’s hard to imagine a similar level of interest in a TV death happening in 2025, but in 1994, Shortland Street dominated our local popular culture. An estimated 619,000 viewers watched the soap every night that year, nearly 20% of the population of Aotearoa at the time. The cast was a who’s who of New Zealand acting talent, including Henderson, Robyn Malcolm, Temuera Morrison, Tim Balme, Martin Czokas, Theresa Healey, Craig Parker and Elizabeth McRae.

Parker recently told The Spinoff that this era of Shortland Street launched the cast into a level of local stardom they couldn’t escape. “​​We were as famous as Tom Cruise, comparatively,” he said. “There was nowhere that you weren’t known.” We’d never known a New Zealand show like it, and clearly, we couldn’t get enough.

Rewatching the pivotal episode now – all of Shortland Street’s 1994 episodes were recently uploaded to YouTube – the scenes remain as shocking as ever. The hospital staff had gathered at an Auckland beach to farewell Gina and Leonard Rossi-Dodds. Hospital CEO Michael McKenna inexplicably arrived in a tiny two-door Toyota Starlet, semi-topless waiters from Kennedy’s bar kept the alcohol flowing freely, and Dr Chris Warner, recently anointed the successful sperm donor daddy to nurse Carrie Burton’s triplets, got quietly sozzled.

Everyone was happy, except for one man: Steve Mills. For the past few weeks, the nurse had come down with a severe case of jealousy after discovering that Chris Warner’s sperm had been more successful than his own. Having to drive a drunk Chris home after the farewell party was the final straw.

Steve’s yellow car hooned along that winding gravel road back to Ferndale, an angry man at the wheel and a drunk one in the back. Kirsty and TP were in the car too, but it was Chris who was the passenger from hell. He goaded Steve about not being the father of Carrie’s triplets, shouting in Steve’s face until the nurse lashed out and pushed Chris away. The car swerved out of control, hurtled off the road and over a bank, as Kirsty and TP’s terrified screams echoed through the air.

Thirty years later, those scenes remain as powerful and evocative as they were in 1994. There’s Kirsty’s panicked tears as Steve resuscitates an unconscious Chris, Steve’s desperate attempts to free a trapped TP from the car, and the grim sight of the flames that begin to lick the engine. Ambulance officer Sam Aleni arrives on the scene, only to watch on helplessly as the car suddenly explodes in an enormous fireball, his wife and best friend still inside.

These episodes – and the related media frenzy – set a high bar for Shortland Street, heralding the next three decades of spectacular disasters, serial killers and exploding volcanos. Not only was it the show’s first major tragedy, but it was the first time Shortland Street ended an episode without playing its iconic theme song. In the aftermath of the car crash, the credits roll as Sam sits alone in his flat. That fiery day ended in complete silence, and the rest of the country couldn’t stop talking about it.

The 1994 season of Shortland Street is available on YouTube.