Injured woman found after passing motorists alert police to crashed car
The sun was barely up yesterday when people began calling police.
A station wagon had gone off Morley Rd, about 7km northeast of the South Auckland settlement of Waiuku, travelled down a bank and into a farm fence.
The white Subaru Legacy was barely damaged and Inspector Mark Rowbottom said police were called just before 7am because of the number of people who had stopped at the crash site. “It was causing some problems.” That public interest may have saved a young woman’s life.
Responding police officers discovered belongings in the vehicle but no occupants. They began looking nearby, and called for the police helicopter and a dog team to help.
Before that help arrived, the officers found a critically injured woman lying in the paddock.
The Franklin woman had suffered injuries not consistent with a car crash, but he would not elaborate, Rowbottom said.
The Weekend Herald understands she had been stabbed.
Last night she was in a stable condition in Auckland City Hospital, where she had been flown by the Auckland Westpac Rescue Helicopter.
She was still too unwell to speak to police yesterday afternoon, Rowbottom said.
Investigations had begun, with forensic staff seen looking at the car and searching in the paddock.
Police were also speaking to the woman’s family and friends, he said.
“We’re trying to track down her movements.”
He appealed for any sightings of the woman’s vehicle between 6pm Thursday and 6am yesterday. This could be in either the Waiuku area or surrounding South Auckland areas.
“Our investigation i s still in its early stages and we are also trying to piece together the circumstances of how she came to be in the paddock and how she sustained her injuries.”
A police spokeswoman said last night there were no new developments in the investigation.