The pain of missing Matthew
‘HE WAS HERE IN THE MORNING AND GONE IN THE AFTERNOON’
THE last words Matthew Bloom said to his dad and stepmum were “I love you”.
Matthew was a passenger in a ute that was travelling 164km/h in an 80km/h zone when the driver – his close friend and brother-in-law – lost control and crashed into a tree in July 2018.
The driver, Daniel Callick, was high on ice and had bought the high-powered Ford Typhoon earlier that day.
The impact of the highspeed crash was so severe the ute split in two.
Matthew was found hanging from his seatbelt by a passer-by who revived him at the scene. He was flown to hospital in Melbourne and placed on life support, but died the next day.
Four years on, his stepmother Wendy Bloom remains traumatised by the grief of losing Matthew just months before her husband – Matthew’s father Charlie – died. Wendy had known Matthew since he was a 13-yearold and thought of him as though he was her own son. He had moved in with his parents six months before his death because his dad was dying of prostate cancer.
“Matthew didn’t muck around with words … he was very good at whatever he took on in life, he was very artistic, very creative,” Wendy said of her stepson.
“Every detail had to be taken care of, he was a quiet living type of person – a homebody, he was just a family guy getting on in life.
“He was a sweetheart.” Matthew’s death left a huge hole in family and the loss was particularly distressing for his father in his final months.
“I miss him every day,” Wendy said. “He was here in the morning and gone in the afternoon.
“He was a good person who excelled at whatever he put his mind to, and he shouldn’t have died the way he did.”
Daniel Callick pleaded guilty to culpable driving and was sentenced to 8½ years in jail in December 2019.
Judge Felicity Hampel said that the collision and death were “so pointless and avoidable”.
She said there was medical evidence Callick was “acutely psychotic” at the time, but told him that was not a mitigating factor because the psychosis was drug-induced.
“If only people could see and learn from this; appreciating there is a real risk that if they drive when impaired by methamphetamine and they recklessly excessively speed, that they, too, will leave a trail of broken lives behind
them, including their own,” Judge Hampel said during sentencing.
Wendy said people needed to understand the consequences of driving while impaired.
“People need to realise that things can change in a split second on our roads and your life can be cut short or changed forever,” she said.
“It doesn’t matter if you’re close to home, or if you’ve driven on the road you’re travelling on plenty of times before because a lapse in concentration or somebody else’s stupidity can change everything in a split second,” she said. “A car is a deadly weapon, and we all need to respect that and drive accordingly. We all need to slow down and concentrate when we get behind the wheel so no more lives are lost or changed forever.”
Wendy said she believed drug driving was “more of a problem” now than drink driving.
“I really, severely think that these people that do this have no conscience to do what they do. It’s too late when the damage is done.”
Road injuries lawyer Sarah Elseidy, from Slater and Gordon, said no one should ever get behind the wheel while drug-affected.
“Far too many people are killed or seriously injured on Greater Geelong roads because someone decided to drive while drug-affected,” Ms Elseidy said.
“I encourage all motorists to take extra care on our roads in the lead-up to Christmas and the New Year period to help stop the ripple effect of road trauma in our community,” she said.