Warning before sandboarding death, trial told

A Korean tourist who died after being run over by a bus while sandboarding down Northland's Te Paki Stream sand dunes ignored a warning not to go down the dunes when he did, a court has heard.

Jin Chang Oh, 68, died when he was hit by a tour bus while sandboarding at Te Paki dunes on February 4, 2019. Oh went down the sand dune and at the bottom was struck by the back wheels of a Sand Safaris bus, suffering fatal head injuries.

Far North tourism company Sand Safaris 2014 Limited is on trial in the Kaitaia District Court before Judge Philip Rzepecky on a charge laid by Worksafe New Zealand over the death. The company is charged under the Health and Safety at Work Act with exposing an individual to harm or illness.

Oh’s death was witnessed by a large group of people, including his wife, son and daughter-in-law.

Prosecutor Rachael Woods said the company had inadequate and inappropriate safety measures in place given the risks of sandboarding at the dunes.

Woods said this was a real risk and the company would have been aware of it after a boy was hit by a vehicle sandboarding on the dunes two years earlier.

The company has pleaded not guilty to the charge.

Woods said the company did not have an adequate traffic management plan in place for when it had clients sandboarding at the dunes and had no signage in place warning of the risks and hazards or barriers protecting those sandboarding from other vehicles using the Te Paki Stream, which included many tour buses. She said the company did not take all steps practicable to mitigate the risks sandboarding activities.

Sand Safaris did not separate the run-out area from moving vehicles, nor did it have any traffic management – such as signs, barriers or a staff member at the bottom of the dunes. Instead, it tried to manage the risk by having the tour bus driver go up the sand dune with tourists, observe any oncoming traffic and control the activity accordingly, she said.

In his evidence to the court yesterday driver Daniel Beazley, who was driving the Dune Rider bus the Ohs were on, said he gave his normal instructions that day of telling those that were going to go sandboarding the safety rules, including how to slow the board down (by digging the toes into the sand) and asked some passengers at the bottom of the dunes to keep an eye out for other vehicles and stop them from going past while people were sandboarding. (Dune Rider has the same shareholders and directors as Sand Safari, but is a separate company).

Beazley said as usual he went to the top of the dunes and again explained the safety measures, including that people had to go down one at a time. He said as he was kneeling down to help a young girl get on her board he heard a board hit the sand behind him.

He turned and saw it was Oh and Beazley said he put his hand up and told Oh to stop as he could not go down the part of the dune he was potentially going to go down, and told him to wait and go down the area where he was helping the young girl. Oh picked up his board and smiled at him, Beazley said.

However, Beazley said when he turned back to help the girl he again heard a board hit the sand and a second or so later when he looked round Oh was already halfway down the sand dune.

Under questioning from Woods, Beazley said he did not know for sure if all the people understood English, but said they smiled and nodded and he took that to mean they did understand. Beazley said he had not driven for the company since that day as the incident had stuck with him ever since.

He said tour bus drivers had agreed among themselves to toot their horn as they approached the dunes, but he did not hear it that day as he was too busy trying to help his passengers.

Senny Robson, who drove the Sand safari bus that struck Oh said he did not realise he had collided with Oh until people on his bus started screaming as he was concentrating on the fact there were people on the stream in front of him. Robson, who had been driving the route for about 28 years and tooted before he got to the spot that day, said he was going at 2-4km/h at the time. He said he had never had any training around traffic management.

Jin Chang Oh’s son, Sang Kyun Oh, has travelled from Korea for the trial, which is set down for four days.