Car runs over sleeping baby in freak accident

Press, 14 November 1987, Page 2

Car runs over sleeping baby in freak accident

PA Auckland A desperate man tried to throw himself in front of his car to save his sleeping daughter as it rolled on the girl, aged six months, in a freak accident at Wiri. But the man, Mr Colin Emery, as too late and his large automatic-drive car rolled over the tent where his daughter, Virginia, was in bed, and killed her.

Other relatives at the family gathering in Wiri about 10 p.m. on Thursday also lunged at the runaway car.

A family spokesman said yesterday that a rela-

tive tried to start another automatic car, one of two cars in an open-ended garage. Mr Emery said the car must have jumped out of the park mode and into reverse, knocking the car behind which was sent rolling towards the tent. “Baby had been breastfed and put down for the night in the tent where we were all going to stay for the week-end,” he said.

His family had come from Rotorua for a relative’s baptism this weekend. They are now preparing to return home for the girl’s funeral on Monday.

“I saw the car rolling

towards the tent and I tried to dive in front of it to grab baby, but it was too late,” he said. The dead girl’s uncle, Mr Michael James, said the boy who started the car was in deep shock yesterday, Mr James said he had heard the baby’s mother, Eva, scream as the car started rolling. “She was crying ‘my baby, my baby’. We turned and tried to grab the car,” he said.

“Afterwards I could hardly think. I couldn’t seem to find the right numbers to ring the police. It seemed to take ages just to dial.”