A car in which two people were seriously injured is removed. PHOTO/JADE CVETKOV
Head-on collision in Greytown’s 50kmh zone
Witness: Cries of pain sobering
KAREN COLTMAN
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A head-on crash between two cars on Greytown’s Main St late Friday morning resulted in three people with serious injuries being transported to hospitals.
A woman was flown to Wellington Hospital, a man to Palmerston North Hospital, while another man in his 70s was transported by ambulance to Wairarapa Hospital.
The crash happened just after 11am, south of the Greytown shops. One vehicle was spun off the road into a hedge in front of Schoc Chocolates.
Greytown Volunteer Fire Brigade crew cut the roof off the written-off vehicle to get the male driver out.
“We cut the top off to reduce risk of further injury or twisting the injured driver,” officer in charge Joe Warbrick said.
“We tilted the seat back and then slid a curved board behind him, eased him back and lifted him up.”
Warbrick said there were concerns for the man as he appeared to be losing consciousness and was saying he had a broken arm.
Paramedics assisted him at the scene before he was helicoptered to a hospital.
Both car airbags engaged and the female passenger was not lifted out this way.
Schoc Chocolates manager Grace Tallack came out of the shop after hearing “an almighty bang” like nothing she has ever heard before.
“I thought maybe someone had hit my parked car, I certainly wasn’t expecting to see a smash like that,” Tallack said. “It was a real shock.
“I saw an older man with white hair in a black car in the middle of the road facing north but the other small blue car was up against the shop hedge. It was completely crumpled with the passengers inside.
“I could hear cries of pain – it was pretty sobering.”
She said it was “very strange” to see such an accident in a residential, 50kmh zone.
Her colleague Christine Healy came out and talked to the male driver of the station wagon before the paramedics arrived. He was out of his car but later got medical attention and was put on a stretcher.
The main road between the Church St-Wood St intersection and the Papawai-Humphries St intersection was shut off for more than three hours.
The crash is being investigated by the Serious Crash Unit.
Earlier a woman had crashed her car into a parked four-wheel drive in Margaret St, Solway in Masterton.
The ute was shoved on to the footpath smashing it into a brick wall just after 9am. Several neighbours came out after hearing the bang.
The woman got out of her car under her own steam, despite an injured ankle.
Ambulance, police and fire attended.
The car’s airbags engaged saving her head from the steering wheel. She had just dropped her two children at a primary school.
Margaret St resident Kelly Vollebregt came out of her house and removed the driver from the scene as the car’s engine had started smoking. As she walked away it caught alight.
Vollebregt got a hose on to it and other neighbours got buckets of water to help contain the fire until the Masterton Fire Service arrived to finish the job.
Both cars were badly damaged.
