Four passengers in serious crash
Stationary cars lined Waimarama Rd yesterday as emergency services attended to a car that had veered off the road and into a paddock.
Fire, police and a rescue helicopter were all at the scene on the rural coastal road, after a vehicle with four occupants rolled near the intersection of Lopez Lane.
The crash occurred about 3.20pm, offering other drivers no choice but to wait patiently for the road to open.
A member of the fire service walked up the recently tarsealed road, informing individual drivers that it would be closed for at least half an hour.
It's understood the vehicle, with four people inside, had left the road and gone down a bank at least 50m from where it left the road. Drivers and passengers got out of their cars to observe the scene as the rescue helicopter landed in the middle of the road.
‘‘I really hope they're all okay,’’ one woman said.
It's the second crash that has occurred in the same stretch of road in less than a week. Last Thursday a car, heading toward Waimarama Beach, veered off the road and flipped into bushes near Lopez Lane.
The latest crash occurred 50m from that same spot.
A fire officer at the scene said the driver had been heading back toward Havelock North when the car went off the road.
A Hawke's Bay District Health Board spokeswoman said three people were in Hawke's Bay Hospital in a stable condition.
The road was reopened shortly after the helicopter left the scene.