Woman recalls footpath fatality
One of the victims of an Oamaru crash that killed a pedestrian on January 11 says she relives the trauma daily.
An Oamaru man, 86, driving a green Honda Jazz, apparently lost control of his vehicle outside the Lagonda Milk Bar on Eden St, killing Gerald James Cowley, 67, of Waikouaiti and injuring two other pedestrians. The vehicle went on to hit two cars on Thames St, including George’s.
She was on her way to pick up a friend.
George, who had injuries to her head and was concussed, was taken by ambulance to Oamaru Hospital with the man who crashed into her and an Oamaru teenager whose foot was run over.
‘‘I was in the turning lane and the light had gone green, so I got ready to go,’’ George said. ‘‘The first time I looked I never saw anything going on and the second time I thought, ‘it’s going to go green very shortly’, and out of the corner of my eye I saw that green car absolutely hurtling . . . and I knew I was in deep trouble.’’
She braced herself firmly against the steering wheel, ready to be hit.
‘‘I never heard the Mazda get hit because I’d gone into lockdown, I think. And then when the bang came, I had an electric fence standard in the boot and it pierced the petrol can in the boot. It was embedded about four inches deep.
Looking up, she saw the driver of the Honda slumped over.
‘‘He had no seatbelt on and he was in the passenger side and he was slumped unconscious at this point.’’
Being a former nurse her first instinct was to help the driver of the car that had hit her, she said.
‘‘ I didn’t even turn the car off. I clambered around and I checked his airway and his pulse. It was slightly fast, between 85 and 90, and I thought, ‘you’re OK’.
‘‘I had a good concussion and I went into that real nurse mode,’’ she recalled.
She had spoken to the woman driving the other vehicle that was hit, a Mazda. Both vehicles were considered to be write-offs.
‘‘I think her car probably did save my life.’’
The second pedestrian hit by the car, a 70-year-old woman, was discharged from Dunedin Hospital last week.
Police said the cause of the crash was still being investigated.