Crash victim grateful for help from good Samaritan
The teen victim of a terrifying crash near Waipukurau is immensely grateful to a passerby who found him spaced out by the side of the road and rushed him 50km to hospital.
Jobe Koolen was travelling to work when he took a corner too fast and flipped his Honda Civic.
That is all the farmer can remember from the crash, which occurred on Arlington Rd about 6.45am on Friday.
“All I remember is getting the into car in the morning to drive to work. I don’t really remember all that much of the crash,” he said.
“I remember driving around a corner and felt the motion of flipping and I was knocked out pretty much from then on.
After the dramatic crash, Koolen was rushed to Hawke’s Bay Hospital by a passer-by.
“There was no ambulances, no police, no nothing.
“A guy just drove past and asked if I was all right and asked if that was my car.
“He told me to jump in and took me all the way to hospital.”
Koolen, who wants to thank the passer-by, was diagnosed with head trauma, a concussion and a bruised lung. He also has a significant number of cuts and bruises all over his body.
“I stopped remembering what exactly happened after I rolled and start remembering again after a guy pulled over and asked if I was all right,” he said.
Police said there is “limited information” regarding the crash because of the nature of how it was reported.
A police spokeswoman said it appeared a police unit came across the single-vehicle collision on Arlington Rd/Porangahau Rd about 7.56pm on Friday.
Jobe’s mother, Sandra Koolen, said she will be forever grateful to the man who stopped for her son.
“Man do I thank God he is here. His angels were holding on to him on Friday,” she said.
“Thank you so much to the man that found my son and brought him straight to the hospital.”
Jobe said he was told by police an “overcorrection” was the reason behind the crash.
“Police said I was going around the corner too fast and tried to correct myself and ended up rolling my car.”
The teenager is able to start work next week again.