Doctors save arm of girl burnt in crash

Doctors have managed to save the arm of a

15-year-old girl left with burns to half her body after a fiery Christchurch crash.

Sunmara Alexander, 15, remains critically injured in Auckland Hospital after the crash that killed her sister, Tayla Bray Alexander, 17, last Wednesday night.

The sisters were passengers in a car, reportedly driven by a 19-year-old man, that crashed down a Port Hills bank and caught fire. Passersby, then emergency services, fought the fire and pulled the occupants out.

The girls’ mother, Linda Thomson, speaking from her home in Queensland, Australia, said she was in close contact with their father, Jason Alexander.

Doctors had to remove some of Sunmara’s skin and there was swelling over her face. Burns were over half her body, Thomson said.

‘‘There was bad circulation to her left arm and they were going to amputate, but they managed to save it,’’ Thomson said.

She would head to New Zealand today for Tayla’s funeral in Ashburton tomorrow, and would visit Sunmara in Auckland on Friday.

The two girls had six half-brothers and sisters. Thomson remembered Tayla as a ‘‘grandad’s girl and the apple of her dad’s eye’’.

‘‘Her little brothers and sister will miss her very much. Sunmara, we [are] all just hoping she pulls through and has a speedy recovery and can be there for her dad. I could not ask for better girls.

‘‘No-one should have to go through this; it’s heartbreaking. My girl will forever be

17, but never forgotten.

‘‘I know there’s a lot of people who are blaming themselves for Tayla not making it . . . They did everything they could.’’

Tayla Alexander, left, 17, died in a car crash last week. Her sister Sunmara, 15, was also in the car and remains in a critical condition.

Jason Alexander arrived back in Christchurch about lunchtime yesterday and told Stuff: ‘‘It’s going to be a pretty emotional day today.’’

He said in a public post on Facebook that Sunmara had ‘‘aced’’ surgery on Monday night and ‘‘made another day’’.

Ashburton community members, including the newly formed Ashburton Angels, are rallying to help the Alexanders as well as other families.

Already 300 people have joined the Facebook group, with about 50 families receiving items so far, including 30 frozen chickens supplied for Christmas.

‘‘It’s just to help the families in this little community because I’ve been there, I’ve lined up in the City Mission for a Christmas meal myself. I’m certainly not rich, I live pay packet to pay packet, but I can give,’’ Angels co-ordinator Debbie-Lee Powell said.

‘‘Man Cavers’’ around the country have offered Jason Alexander money, accommodation and beer as he travels between Christchurch and Auckland to be with Sunmara.