Wife witness to terrifying crash

A wife watched in terror as her husband’s truck bounced off the road, flipped and then skidded about 30m on its side with smoke pouring from it.

Kelly and Henry Hokai were heading home from a weekend in Hamilton celebrating their first wedding anniversary and had just picked up his work truck from the Rotor Works yard in Tokoroa when the steering appeared to fail and the truck went out of control.

Kelly Hokai, who is also a truck driver, was following her 41-yearold husband when the front of the 12-tonne tipper truck smashed into a ditch, rolled and bounced back on to the road. It skidded for about 30m with smoke pouring out before eventually stopping.

“I was just scared for him. Just watching — I was thinking, please don’t roll and flip and roll and flip and blow up,” Kelly Hokai said.

As the truck stopped, she parked her car in front of the truck and sprinted towards her husband, not knowing if he was dead or alive.

“I saw it all unfolding but I just didn’t know if he was going to be okay on the inside . . . I didn’t know what the damage was in the front, because I was behind him.”

The windscreen smashed on the road and she could hear her husband groaning.

Once she realised he was alive, her next fear was that the truck was going to blow up with him inside because she thought she had seen a gas tank fly out from under the truck.

The truck’s engine would not turn off.

A driver of a Salvation Army truck who had been heading north at the same time as the crash also rushed to the truck and they quickly helped Hokai out of the cab. The pair carried him to the back of the car, and within minutes an off-duty ambulance officer, nurse and doctor and also pulled over to help.

A rescue helicopter transported Hokai to Tokoroa Hospital, where doctors confirmed he had a lucky escape.

His right side took the impact of the crash and he suffered abrasions to the back of his thighs caused by his legs rubbing on the upholstery, bruises along the right side of his body, and a bump to the head.

His wife said he was still in pain and “had seen stars” after the crash. He was recovering at home.

Doctors did not believe the crash was caused by a medical mishap and the truck was now being inspected.

Kelly Hokai said her husband believed the power steering failed as the wheel was stiff and would not veer right when he tried to take the bend.

The couple travelled to Hamilton on Friday so he could have an MRI at Waikato Hospital after an infection caused him to temporarily lose sight in one eye and develop brain abscesses.

Doctors gave him the all-clear so they visited the casino, treated themselves to dinner and stayed in a hotel for the weekend — leaving their teenagers at home.

The truck will be examined by a vehicle inspector.