Officer recalls ‘beastly’ crash

The silver SUV was airborne and tumbling through the fading light.

Senior Constable Les Andrew, watching through the windscreen of his patrol car, knew immediately he was seconds away from a horrific scene. Nothing in his 26 years on the job could have prepared him for what lay ahead last July 3.

Andrew was coaching a school basketball team in Twizel when the call came in. Several motorists contacted police to complain about a silver Toyota Highlander driving erratically, including on the wrong side of State Highway 8.

He eventually found the vehicle on the side of the highway, north of Pukaki, nudged against a fence. It was still running after a minor prang.

Two men sitting inside gave the impression they had been drinking, so Andrew went back to his car to get a breathalyser. The test showed alcohol.

‘‘Then the passenger said ‘no, this isn’t happening, this isn’t going to happen’ and started getting a bit revved up.’’

Realising things were escalating, Andrew retreated to his car to call for help. ‘‘Just as I opened the door, I heard the car start up and come towards me ... then they swung around and took off.’’

By the time he was in pursuit, six cars were between him and the Highlander. In the distance, he saw it flip. ‘‘It was in the air doing a full rotation. I knew it was going to be a fairly horrific scene.’’

The Highlander had hit a small truck, landing on the side of the road. On the other side of the road, the truck had gone down a small incline. He recognised the vehicle immediately. It belonged to Twizel man Nigel Freeman. ‘‘Emotionally for me, things started kicking in, knowing it’s a local and knowing the other driver was most likely grossly intoxicated.

‘‘I could see bits of car, it was a horrific scene. One of the worst I’d been to as far as material on the road and the distance it was spread over.’’

Andrew checked Freeman, a keen fisherman, thinking he would have had no chance of surviving. He was right.

He then checked the other car. The driver, Australian Stephen John Hayden, 46, was dead. His passenger was seriously injured but alive.

‘‘From there on, some things kicked in as per normal, other things – the emotional things – prevented me from being as accurate as I needed to be. I think comms and people listening to me could tell that this was affecting me.’’

He called for help from the police serious crash unit. Local firefighters, many of whom knew Freeman, arrived soon after. ‘‘You’re sort of trying to ease them down too while you’re dealing with the emotions of what’s happened. I would describe it as a beast, you wouldn’t want too many officers to go through that.’’

His colleagues knew he was struggling and took him away. Someone else would handle the crash scene. The next 48 hours were horrible. ‘‘I couldn’t sleep at all, it was just going through my head, your mind’s going flat-stick and you’re thinking of things and seeing things.’’

All the what-ifs did not help. ‘‘If I had got stuck behind a car or something just changed my timing by a few seconds, Nigel would still be here.’’

He spoke to a psychologist. First on the phone, then in several face-to-face sessions. After six weeks off work, he was back in uniform.

Andrew recently bumped into Freeman’s wife for the first time since the funeral. ‘‘It brings it all back. You think police go do a job and that’s the end of it. But when you know the people intimately or have contact with them in the community, it’s a wee bit different – the emotional stuff all comes back to you.’’

Unfortunately, such encounters are not unusual. In the last three years, two former school friends have died in crashes. He was the one to tell their parents. ‘‘They always say ‘oh, I’m glad you dealt with it, Les’.’’

He’s learnt a lot from the July 3 crash. Mostly, he is more emotionally vulnerable now. ‘‘I might not have that again for the rest of my career but it may happen again tomorrow. You just don’t know.’’

‘‘I could see bits of car, it was a horrific scene. One of the worst I’d been to.’’

Senior Constable Les Andrew on the fatal July 3 incident in Twizel.