Witness tried to save victims
the early hours of Sunday morning.
‘‘I was totally shocked by what I saw.
‘‘I was petrified for him. He went to the front passenger first and opened the door and, unfortunately, they were deceased.’’
Three people died – brothers Jesse Hayne and Shand Cotgrove, and their best friend, Jacob Gray.
Gray and Cotgrove were believed to have been in their early 20s, while Hayne was 18. All three were former pupils at Aotea College, Porirua.
Karen said her husband ran around to try and get the man in the back seat out, but the impact of the crash had thrown him forward over the driver.
He yelled out to get a fire extinguisher, which a woman provided.
He then used that to try to put flames out inside the car, while attempting again to drag a man out.
He then tried to rescue the driver, but the flames and smoke grew too much and he had to retreat.
Karen said he was devastated to have not been able to get the bodies out.
Watching her husband get into a car on fire would stick with her forever.
‘‘We realised after he could have got himself killed.’’
It was her husband’s natural reaction to help and she said he felt he had failed because he didn’t get the bodies out.
The car had hit a truck parked on the corner.
A woman who drives past the site of the crash regularly wishes she had called someone about concerns she had earlier.
The woman, who did not wish to be named, said she had been driving past the truck for the past couple of months and had been concerned about the way it was parked.
The truck was parked on the corner of Cambridge and Macarthur streets in front of a yellow high-visibility sign, which points for traffic to turn left and right on to Cambridge St.
‘‘I mentioned it to my daughter, or whoever else was in the car with me, ‘that’s dangerous parking there’.
‘‘Hindsight thing.’’
Digi Patel, whose family owns the dairy on the corner, said something similar had happened before. A few years ago, a car had not stopped at the intersection and driven straight through into the grass area on the other side.
Patel said the high-visibility sign was erected after that.
But it had been blocked by the truck. is a wonderful