Husband charged over horror smash
THE husband of a woman killed in a horror crash on the Gold Coast last year has been charged with her death nine months after the tragedy.
Peter Dowker, 47, of Miami, was allegedly drunk and behind the wheel when he lost control on a long lefthand bend and slammed into trees on The Panorama at Tallai on July 9 last year.
His wife, retired Mudgeeraba State School teacher Lana Hufnagl, 57, was a passenger and died at the scene despite the desperate efforts of emergency services who used the jaws of life to cut her from the wreck.
Nine months after the tragedy, the Forensic Crash Unit has charged him with dangerous operation of a vehicle causing death while adversely affected by an intoxicating substance and driving under the influence of alcohol.
Dowker was badly injured in the smash and spent time in Gold Coast University Hospital but has since been released.
He will front Southport Magistrates Court on June 5.
The devastated family of mother-of-two Ms Hufnagl expressed relief following news of the charges saying “we feel like justice needs to be served”.
Ms Hufnagl had only returned from a cruise around the Pacific Islands with her daughter Ursula on the day she was killed.
Her family today told the Gold Coast Bulletin they will never forget the horrific moment they discovered she had died in the 8pm smash.
“The police came to the door of the Mudgeeraba family home at 3am,” said a family member who asked not to be named.
“She was the most caring, outgoing, fit 57-year-old who would talk to anyone and was a very trusted person ... people would instantly warm to her and she’d light up a room.
“She’d take the shirt off her own back to help someone, she was so selfless.”
Ms Hufnagl and Dowker had been married for two years but had known each other for about six years.
Her heartbroken family say they are “suffering really badly” with her twin threeyear-old grandsons “still crying for her”.
“We are finding it hard to cope every day without her,” they said.