Untitled

Press, 4 August 1977, Page 6

Three Christchurch persons had a miraculous escape yesterday when their car (shown above) was struck side-on on Yaldhurst Road by a 50tonne fully laden truck and trailer unit.

“They are the luckiest people to survive an accident I have ever seen,” said a St John Ambulanceman, Mr C. F. Timpson, who has been a St John driver for 19 years.

He was the driver of one of the two ambulances that attended the accident. The car the three were travelling in was struck on the driver’s side near the front by the truck and struck again near the rear wheels on the same side by the trailer.

The accident occurred at the corner of Yaldhurst and Pound Roads late yesterday morning. Only one of the four persons involved was admitted to hospital. He is Mr J. Pritchett, of 314 Wairakei Road, Bryndwr, who suffered

head lacerations. His condition in the Christchurch Hospital last evening was given as fairly comfortable.

Although a nearby telephone-box lay in pieces on the ground, the telephone was still working and a bystander used it to call the Post Office and tell it the telephone no longer had a home. After being in collision with the car, the truck and trailer unit continued across Yaldhurst Road demolishing the telephonebox and scraping a telegraph pole, went through several fences, tore open the concrete top of a septic tank ,and came to rest on the front lawn of a house in Pound Road. The other persons in the accident are Mr and Mrs P. M. Merry of 71 Gayhurst Road, Daliington, and Mr E. Mara, of 77 Moore Street, Rolleston.

All three were treated at the Christchurch Hospital, and discharged.