Hysterical passenger: ‘It’s a body’

A drink-driver thought a teenager sleeping on a rural road at night was a ‘‘bag or an animal’’ before she fatally ran him over.

The woman, who has name suppression, decided it was safer to go over the object than to swerve.

When she realised the object was a person – Danny Mathew Hendriks – it was too late.

A Coroner’s inquest into Hendriks’ death was held in Christchurch on Friday.

The Canterbury 18-year-old was with about 20 men on a bus trip celebrating a friends stag do on April 5, 2014, the inquest heard.

Sergeant Mike Jackson said the bus driver made several stops at pubs along the trip before making a toilet stop in Fairton, between Ashburton and Rakaia. Six or seven people got off the bus.

The driver did a ‘‘quick walk around’’ to ensure everyone had got back on before continuing to Ashburton.

Hendriks had not got back on the bus.

He sent a text message to his girlfriend at 9.16pm asking her to call him. He messaged her again shortly after, saying, ‘‘Help, I’m stuck.’’

At 9.40pm Jackson said police received several calls regarding a ‘‘drunk male’’. One caller said a man was ‘‘jumping out in front of traffic’’ on State Highway 1.

Jackson said police went to look for the man but could not find him.

At 9.43pm Hendriks’ girlfriend messaged him saying ‘‘are you there’’.

Hendriks never replied. He had hitched a ride to Rakaia, where he lived with his grandparents. He was dropped at the petrol station sometime after 10pm and was last seen walking towards the railway tracks.

The driver who hit Hendriks told the inquest she had three glasses of wine with dinner when she and two friends decided to go to some Rakaia pubs. She then had another glass of wine.

The woman, who wept in the court, said in her statement she ‘‘slowed down a bit’’ after seeing she was going 102kmh on Acton Rd.

Noticing it was dark, she put her lights on high beam. It was then that her front passenger, who has interim name suppression, saw something on the side of the road.

‘‘I said, ‘What is that?’ We were right there on it, I thought it was a bag or an animal.’’

At the last moment the woman saw a dark shape on either side of a bit of colour. There was no movement from it.

‘‘I thought it was just something small, so I thought it was safer to go over it rather than swerve, which could have been dangerous for us.’’

After hitting Hendriks, she slowed her car down and pulled over. Her passenger was ‘‘hysterical’’. ‘‘She kept saying ‘it’s a body’.

Using a torch from the passenger’s cellphone, they saw it was a body.

‘‘I thought it was a girl and called out but got no response – there was no sound or movement.’’

Hendriks was pronounced dead at the scene. His blood alcohol reading was 183mgs/100ml. The woman failed a roadside breath test and later a blood test, with 96mgs/100ml of blood. The legal limit at the time was 80mgs/100ml.

She was convicted of drinkdriving. Police later dropped a careless driving causing death charge.

Senior Constable John Isaac, who attended the scene, said the road would have been warmer than the grass roadside verge.

He said there had been ‘‘several cases’’ where people affected by alcohol had slept on the road.

He said Hendriks was wearing a black jacket, black jeans, black socks and no shoes.

Isaac said more than 90 per cent of sober drivers would not be able to stop short of an upright pedestrian while driving at 100kmh.

‘‘Obviously this percentage is increased greatly when the person is lying prone on the road, as was Mr Hendriks.’’

Coroner Gordon reserved his decision.

Matenga