Six deaths mark opening of Easter road toll

Press, 21 April 1984, Page 1

Six deaths mark opening of Easter road toll

PA Wellington Six people had died on New Zealand roads over the Easter holiday week-end by last evening. In one accident two members of a Lower Hutt family died and two were seriously injured when their car left State highway One and hit a tree, just south of Foxton at 10.30 p.m. on Thursday. Other fatalities occurred at Hastings, Otautau in Southland, Otahuhu in South Auckland and Warkworth in Northland. Last Easter four people died on the roads during the same period and 13 died

during the whole week-end. Over the last five years, the highest Easter road toll was 15 in 1980. The two people who died near Foxton were James Himiona Hiraka, aged 37, of Lower Hutt, who was driving, and Lorena Temahora Hiraka, aged 11, of Lower Hutt. Kui Hiraka, aged 31, and Thomas James Hiraka, aged 13, were yesterday in the intensive care unit at Palmerston North Public Hospital. Thomas Hiraka had severe head injuries, but a police spokesman did not

know the extent of Mrs Kui Hiraka’s injuries. A fifth member of the family travelling in the car, Garfield Hiraka, aged seven, was also in the hospital being treated for minor injuries. In the first fatal accident after the official holiday road toll period started at 4 p.m. on Thursday, a passenger in a car which hit a power pole in Hastings about 7.30 p.m. later died. He was Derek Jonathon Reihana, aged 23, of Hamilton. A young Southland man was killed when the car he

was travelling in hit a concrete fence post at 12.15 a.m. yesterday at Otautau. He was Jeffrey Francis McAlister, aged 23. Another passenger in the car, Roger Oughton, aged 18, of Otautau, was injured and was in a comfortable condition in Southland Hospital. In Auckland a man was killed yesterday after being struck by a car on the southern motorway. He had not been identified late last evening. The man, a Polynesian, aged about 45, carried nothing to identify him, but the police said that tattooed on his right thigh were the words: Poko, Nod, Tu and Faphuruoiu. A woman died early yesterday when her car struck a bridge about 3km west of Warkworth. She was Harriet Maria Dawson, aged 28, believed to be of Warkworth.