Train clips farm worker’s tractor
A 19-YEAR-OLD woman is in a critical condition after the tractor she was driving was ripped in two by a 1000-tonne freight train.
The tractor was found mangled when emergency services reached the scene west of Halcombe, near Marton, about 11am yesterday.
A family friend said Jennifer Hughes had been helping her father with haymaking on the farm when the accident happened.
Her father, Paul Hughes, who is the local volunteer fire brigade chief, was on another machine and heard the train sounding its horn and looked behind to see it clip the back wheel of the tractor that his daughter was driving.
She was towing a hay rake across the track where it runs through the farm.
The rake was found on the other side of the tracks from where the tractor wreckage came to rest.
With critical head and chest injuries, Ms Hughes was flown to hospital by the Palmerston North rescue helicopter.
A Palmerston North Hospital spokeswoman said Ms Hughes remained in intensive care last night.
Sergeant Grant Lawton, of Feilding, said the injured woman was from a well-known Halcombe family.
The accident was an uncommon one, ‘‘and it’s not something she will want to remember if she wakes up’’.
The crossing was uncontrolled, without bells or barriers, he said.
It was too early to speculate on how the accident occurred.
Train services were delayed while the accident scene was cleared and the driver was immediately stood down, Kiwirail spokeswoman Kimberley Brady said.
The train, which was travelling from Wellington to Auckland, weighed 1000 tonnes and was about 500 metres long.
The locomotive was damaged and taken back to Palmerston North to be replaced.