One dead, six hurt in head-on collision
A former firefighter who was one of the first to reach a fatal crash near Tauranga on Sunday said he had a “gut feeling” the crash was bad before he got there.
One woman was killed and six people were injured in the head-on collision on State Highway 2 at Whakamarama.
Emergency services were called to the two-car crash at the intersection with Te Puna Quarry Rd just before 3pm on Sunday.
A St John Ambulance spokesperson said one person had died at the scene, while another with serious injuries and five with minor injuries were taken to Tauranga Hospital.
A local resident, who wanted to be known only as Brendon, was one of the first to help.
“I just live up the road and heard a ‘bang’,” the former volunteer firefighter said. “I just had a gut feeling ‘This isn’t going to be good’.
“I knew the sound had come from this intersection,” he said.
Brendon fled the house, grabbing a fire extinguisher from his car, and headed to the crash.
“When I got here there’s a lady in the passenger side [of the car] and it looked like she had already gone. I took her pulse but there was nothing there,” he said.
“Her husband, I’m guessing it was her husband . . . seemed to have been knocked out for a bit.”
Several off-duty doctors and nurses had driven past and were taking care of the crash victims while waiting for emergency services.
In the two years he had lived in the area there had been three serious crashes at the same spot, Brendon said. “It’s a crazy intersection.”
Two motorcyclists were also killed on the roads over the weekend. On Friday night a 32-year-old man died in a head-on crash with a ute in Taupo.
The man, named by police as Benjamin Allan Biddle, died at the scene on State Highway 1 at Motutere.
The Serious Crash Unit is investigating and looking into whether speed and alcohol were factors.
Police said initial inquiries suggested Biddle had crossed the centre line before the crash.
A second motorcyclist died after crashing into a fence on Caledonian Rd in Westport around 7.45pm on Sunday.
I just had a gut feeling ‘This isn’t going to be good’. Brendon, former firefighter
The man died at the scene, police said.
A third crash over the weekend caused beachfront properties in Tauranga to be evacuated after a car hit a fence and caused a major gas leak.
The owners of the fence on Ocean Beach Rd in Mount Maunganui said a neighbour told them the vehicle’s driver had fallen asleep at the wheel.