Quarrel saves woman from serious accident

10/10/2011
BELINDA FEEK AND CEANA PRIEST
Stuff.co.nz (New Zealand)

A woman had a narrow escape after getting out of a car just minutes before it was involved in a crash on State Highway 1 at Huntly on Saturday.

However, five other Aucklanders were injured in the crash.

A 19-year-old man and 59-year-old woman, originally from Cambodia, remain at Waikato Hospital in a stable condition. Three others involved were admitted to the hospital but have since been discharged.

A police spokesman said the woman had been a front-seat passenger in a car which crossed the centre line and collided with a northbound car about 6.30pm.

It is understood she got out of the car after an argument.

The spokesman said the damage caused to the front passenger area of the car would have left her with critical, if not life-threatening, injuries, had she still been in the car.

Police believe alcohol was a contributing factor, but were waiting on toxicology results to confirm that.

The driver of the car that crossed the centre line suffered a dislocated hip and was taken to Waikato Hospital.

In total seven people were involved in the crash. Two of them were treated at the scene. All were from Auckland and in their early 20s.

Emergency services from Huntly, Ngaruawahia, Morrinsville and Hamilton went to the crash, which closed the road while the scene was examined.

A Cambridge woman, 52, is in a stable condition in a Waikato Hospital ward after being hit by a car on Roto-o-Rangi Rd, near Cambridge, about 11am on Friday.

She is the latest victim in a sequence of pedestrian crashes in the Waikato in recent months.

Rowan Humffreys, 27, died after being hit by a taxi in Hamilton's CBD. He was the seventh pedestrian to die on the district's roads this year, and the fourth to be hit and killed in Hamilton.