this article tugs at the olde heart strings abit
Lone candle burns where loving Dad should be
11.10.2006
By Beck Vass
Vincent Hyland should be home with his wife Sally and 17-month-old son Zachary, planning the design and location of the new home they planned to build after selling their 3.2ha Oropi property.
Instead, Mr Hyland's family are planning his funeral.
A giggling Zachary pops up playing peek-a-boo from behind the couch looking towards where Sally and his two grandmothers are sitting at the kitchen table, unaware that his father won't be coming home.
On the table is a burning candle, surrounded by photos of Mr Hyland - one with Sally when they got engaged, one with Zachary his "pride and joy" and another on his wedding day 11 years ago.
The family has received a steady stream of phone calls, flowers and visitors from around New Zealand and overseas since Sunday, when they were told Mr Hyland, 38, had been killed in an horrific crash as his four-wheel-drive was hit head-on by a milk tanker on State Highway 29, Tauriko.
Tauranga man Clayton Neville Woodward, 28, was also killed in the crash in his four-wheel-drive.
The pair were two of four men, all members of the Bay of Plenty Four Wheel Drive Club, who were driving in convoy after a day in the Kaimai ranges where they had helped rescue a Taupo man stranded on a rough track for two days.
The group used Mr Hyland's Hilux - a vehicle he loved taking places it shouldn't go - to winch the man to safety.
Mrs Hyland told the Bay of Plenty Times that her husband's readiness to help the stranded Taupo man was suggestive of who he was.
"That's the type of guy he was, he had to help ... do anything for anybody."
Mr Hyland joined the Bay of Plenty Four Wheel Drive Club about five years ago and loved cars and trucks from a young age.
"He loved cars and car racing. He'd come in covered in mud," Mrs Hyland said.
"His main love apart from his family was four-wheel-driving."
His mother Marilyn Hyland said her son used to collect "matchbox" cars when he was a child and would line them up in perfect order.
Order was part of his personality. He liked to keep his lawns mowed and his tools tidy so he knew where things were, she said.
Wearing her late husband's wedding ring on a necklace, Mrs Hyland said her husband was a loving, loyal, proud and very hard-working man.
"He could do anything, build anything. He was a devoted, loving husband, he would just turn his hand to anything and everything."
She said Zachary looked set to follow in his father's footsteps - already the "spitting image" of his Dad and full of the same passion for cars and driving.
"Zac's very much like him, a guy's guy, into cars, wheels and things like Vince was. Zac loves four-wheel-driving too."
Mrs Hyland said her husband went four-wheel-driving about twice a month. Usually, she and Zachary went with him but she had decided not to go on the night of the crash because they had a big driving and camping weekend planned for Labour Weekend, she said.
Western Bay police have said there was nothing Mr Hyland or Mr Woodward could do to avoid the crash.
Mrs Hyland said her husband was a good, careful driver but the accident that took his life could happen to anyone.
"We know the boys did nothing wrong. They were in the wrong place at the wrong time.
"You can be a careful driver and you can still end up like Vince. He took evasive action and still copped it."
Mr Hyland's two passengers at the time of the crash are family friends. A 15-year-old Welcome Bay boy and a 35-year-old Welcome Bay man remain in Tauranga Hospital, with the boy still in an induced coma in intensive care last night in a serious but stable condition.
Mr Hyland's family said they were extremely grateful to emergency services staff, particularly one nurse called Barbara who stayed working after her shift finished as they desperately tried to find out where he was.
Mr Hyland will be farewelled by family and friends at Tauranga Park Funeral Home in Pyes Pa at 1.30pm tomorrow.
You dont know whats around the corner 
