All Black bus misses crash

Press, 18 August 1978, Page 1

All Black bus misses crash

PA Wellington A bus carrying the All Blacks to an afternoon training run was seconds away from being involved in a serious four-car pileup in Wellington yesterday afternoon.

The team’s manager, Mr R. W. Thomas, said the players had had lunch at a Stokes Valley hotel and were en route to the St Patrick’s College training ground at Silverstream. The accident occurred a short distance in front of the bus on the Taita Gorge road at 1.45 p.m. Senior-Sergeant D. W. Smeaton of the Lower Hutt police said a car travelling north was involved in a head-on collision with another car after passing a truck. The north-bound vehicle side-swiped a second car travelling south and finally struck a third before stopping on the roadway. The bus carrying the All Blacks was travelling behind the truck.

Mr Thomas, who was on the bus with the players, their coach, Mr J. Gleeson, and the All Black selector, Mr P. S. Burke, said it was not a pretty sight. He assisted a man, one of four people injured in the accident, and held a towel to his profusely bleeding face. Members of the All Black party also gave assistance to other injured people. . Lower Hutt firemen used metal-cutting “jaws-of-life” to extricate the man from the northbound vehicle, and a crow-bar t oextricate a woman from one of the southbound cars. Members of the All Black party assisted the injured before police, traffic officers and ambulance personnel arrived. A man and a women were taken to Lower Hutt Hospital after the accident and Senior-Sergeant Smeaton said their condition was reported to be “fair.” Ten build-up, back page.