Driveway death

Press, 12 September 1986, Page 9

Driveway death

A woman was killed and her daughter badly injured in a freak accident, which happened when they fell off the boot of a car being reversed up a drive by the woman’s son in North New Brighton last evening. The woman and her daughter were sitting on the boot of the car, to which was attached a trailer. The car was reversing up a slight rise in the driveway of a property in Pacific Road just

after 7 p.m. when the tragedy occurred, said the senior station officer of the St John Ambulance service, Mr Gary Schumacher. The dead woman was Fay Thelma Rosewarne, aged 43, of 38 Pacific Road. It seemed that she had been killed instantly when she fell from the boot and hit her head on the side of the trailer, said Mr Schumacher. The woman’s daughter, Maria Rosewarne, aged

13, suffered a broken leg when she fell under the left rear wheel of the car. She was admitted to Christchurch Hospital last evening, but hospital staff declined to give her condition. Senior-Sergeant Chris Cole said it was not known why the two were sitting on the boot. “It seems they may have been trying to give the car some traction,” he said. It was not known whether the trailer was loaded.