Driver scared sober
A man who badly injured his friend after speeding into concrete barriers blocking the slips-tricken Manawatu¯ Gorge highway is preaching sobriety after the incident.
He is also cooling his heels in custody after repeatedly failing to turn up to court.
Carl Raymond Trower, 24, has pleaded guilty in the Nelson District Court to dangerous driving injuring Milton Reriti and breaching bail.
The crash took place on July 17 at the Ashhurst end of the Manawatu¯ Gorge highway, which has been closed since April 2017 due to landslips.
Large concrete barriers have been put across the road to stop traffic, while speed bumps and signs are also in place.
Trower was driving a Mercedes when, at 6.30am, he went past the signs saying the road was closed.
He accelerated above 100kmh before hitting the concrete barrier.
The force of the crash cracked the concrete and flipped the vehicle over the barriers, trapping Trower and Reriti inside.
The jaws of life were needed to get them out before they were taken to hospital.
Trower had methamphetamine and THC, the main psychoactive compound in cannabis, in his system.
Reriti had to be flown to Wellington Hospital then Christchurch for treatment for a traumatic brain injury.
He was in a coma for weeks, needed part of his skull removed and suffered a fractured vertebra, leaving him needing a tilt wheelchair to move.
He now faces a lifetime of rehabilitation and may never become fully independent again.
Trower, who talked to Stuff after the crash, but before he was charged, said he and Reriti spent the night drinking at a friend’s house in Palmerston North.
He claimed he only drank three cups of home brew and left the friend’s house after an argument.
He did not see the dead end signs and only spotted the barrier as the road curved, he said.
But he did remember seeing Reriti hanging from his seatbelt after the crash while the car lay on the driver’s side.
‘‘I tried to wake him up, but I couldn’t.’’
He was plagued with guilt about what he did to Reriti.
‘‘When he was in a coma it was just playing on my mind – what if he doesn’t come out?’’
He now encouraged sober driving, saying he did not want his friends to make the same mistake.
Trower is in custody until his sentencing in Nelson in February.