Moment car hit pedestrian
“THERE was this big bang and glass went everywhere.”
Jaymi Clarke described the moment her father’s sedan struck a man walking along the Warrego Highway as “the most helpless feeling”.
On Friday, April 13 at 7pm, Miss Clarke’s father, Rhodney Clarke, was driving her and her five-year-old daughter, Kaylee home to Kogan when they struck Chinchilla man Steven King.
Mr King had been attempting to cross the highway about 30km out of Dalby.
He is now in an induced coma at Brisbane’s Princess Alexandra Hospital, having suffered multiple fractured bones and internal injuries, as well as having had his right leg amputated.
In the seconds after the accident, Mr Clarke pulled over to check on the man while Miss Clarke rang Triple Zero.
She said she then saw Mr King get struck a second time by a truck that had been travelling behind their car.
“It was the most helpless feeling,” she said.
Once Queensland Fire and Emergency Services arrived on the scene, they worked to free Mr King.
“We slowly inched the truck off him so that they could get to him and check him out and do what they could,” she said.
“I had a blanket in the back of my car and ran and got that cause they were trying to warm him up and do what they could until the ambulance got there.”
As Mr King was airlifted to the Princess Alexandra Hospital, Miss Clarke’s concerns turned to her father who was taken to Dalby Hospital in an ambulance.
“They were worried about his breathing because he was having shortness of breath and a tight chest sort of thing,” she said.
Mr Clarke was given the all clear and released soon after.
Miss Clarke said she was grateful for passing motorists who stopped to help.
“There were so many lovely people there,” she said.
“There was this lady who stayed with my daughter Kaylee pretty much the whole time.
“I was in a pretty bad state of mind so I didn’t really want for her to see me like that.
“My poor child, she didn’t see what happened but it freaked her out, the bang and everything.”