Papakura Auckland NZ Wed 18 Jan 2022. Source: NZ Police and NZ Herald. A mother pleaded with rescuers to save her children before herself following a fatal Auckland road crash that claimed the life of one person and left six others including children with serious injuries.
A man who lives near the crash site told the NZ Herald he saw it happen outside his home.
He said a mother was injured and a baby was stuck in the back.
“We helped pull them out of the car. The lady who was stuck told us to leave her and grab the kids.”
He said one child seemed to be only months old, another looked about 3 or 4. Their faces were swollen and one of the people pulled from the car was not moving.
Another witness, Jazmin Jamieson told the NZ Herald she was standing outside her home on Ingram St when they saw a rush of people running towards a mess of mangled metal in the middle of the road.
When I walked up, a little boy was walking across the road, he was yelling for his sister,” Jamieson told the Herald.
She didn’t find his sister immediately, instead, she found the boy’s brother. She estimated the first boy to be about 8, and the second about 10 years old.
Jamieson said they weren’t seriously injured except for a few cuts and bruises so she got them to sit on the side of the road and “look after each other” while she went back to the wreckage to help others.
She said the mother pleading for her children was stuck in the wreckage while another woman she presumed was the aunty was lying on the road screaming about an injury to her arm. Another family member, a man, stood over her in shock and unable to speak.
Jamieson told the Herald another bystander handed her a baby girl about 3 months old.
“She said one of the young boys had given her the baby,” Jamieson said.
“I asked her to give it to me because she was freaking out, she didn’t know what to do.”
“She was completely limp, she was lifeless and you could see her struggling to breathe.”
“I tried to rub her cheeks and speak to her, but there was no reaction.”
Jamieson stood with the baby, stroking her cheeks and speaking to her softly for 15 minutes among the crash debris while she waited for emergency services to arrive.
“I handed her off to a first responder …”
NZ Police say emergency services were called to the crash involving a vehicle and light truck on Porchester Road, near Ingram Street, at around 10.42pm on Wednesday.
“Sadly one person has died as a result and six others sustained injuries..
“Four of those were assessed as having serious to moderate injuries, with two others sustaining minor injuries.”
A St John Ambulance shift supervisor Wendy Keightley told NZ media they had “three patients in critical condition and five in serious to moderate condition”.
“We transported a total of eight patients to the hospital..
“Due to the number of patients, we’ve transported them to both Auckland and Middlemore Hospitals..
“We’ve had to call in a significant amount of resources to this incident.”
Four children were taken to Starship Hospital while three adults, one in critical condition, were taken to Middlemore.
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