Another tourist comes to grief

DAMAGE DONE: Kaitaia firefighters at the scene of Sunday evening's crash north of Awanui.

Inquiries into a two-car crash on State Highway 1 just south of the Aupouri Forest headquarters on Sunday evening were continuing yesterday, but police suspected one of the cars had been travelling in the wrong lane.

A spokesman said it appeared a Spanish tourist had exited Rotokawau Road and headed north in the southbound lane, travelling only a few metres before colliding with a southbound vehicle on a blind corner.

Both cars were extensively damaged but no one was injured.

The accident was the latest in a string of mishaps over the holiday period, one of which saw a woman flown by rescue helicopter to Whangarei Hospital with a badly broken arm after a buggy rolled on 90 Mile Beach, some four kilometres north of the Kaka Street access, on Monday last week. It was understood that two women had been performing donuts in the two-seater machine when it rolled.

Volunteers from the Ahipara Fire Brigade, who were first on the scene in a four-wheel-drive appliance, administered first aid until St John medics arrived on the Kaitaia brigade's water tanker.

Kaitaia's deputy CFO, Craig Rogers said the injured woman wasn't trapped but had been complaining of a sore neck and back. As a precaution firefighters used the jaws of life to cut off the buggy's roll cage so she could be removed without risking any possible spinal injury.

A day earlier the rescue helicopter flew to a coastal campsite near Mitimiti, where a teenage boy suffered back injuries in a quad bike accident. He was also flown to Whangarei Hospital, while a woman who hurt herself while dune boarding at Te Paki earlier that day was flown to Kaitaia Hospital.

Her injuries were not initially regarded as serious, but emergency services were called when her pain intensified. She was collected from the Cape Reinga carpark.

On Christmas Eve the Ahipara and Kaitaia fire brigades were called to Tauroa (Reef Point), west of Ahipara, where a man apparently misjudged a jump on a sports quad. He suffered back injuries, and was flown to Whangarei Hospital after St John medics were transported to the scene by four-wheel-drive fire engine and quad bike.

Mr Rogers said the summer holidays always brought a spate of motorbike, quad and buggy injuries on the district's beaches

"We get them every year around this time. People think they are bullet-proof," he said.

Meanwhile the driver of a vehicle involved in a serious crash south of Kaikohe was charged with drink-driving after allegedly recording 507 micrograms of alcohol per litre of breath. A sedan and a ute collided at Awarua just after 6pm on Tuesday. One person was thrown from the sedan, suffering serious injuries to one arm.

It was believed that the sedan had already crashed when it was hit by the ute, and that at least one person fled the scene after the crash.

Volunteers from the Kaikohe Fire Brigade helped St John ambulance medics carry the injured man to the helicopter, which had landed in a nearby paddock. The police Serious Crash Unit was called to investigate.

A 47-year-old Auckland man, his wife and three other passengers aged from 7 to 18 were taken to Kaitaia Hospital for checking but appeared to have escaped without serious injury when their car rolled and crashed into trees on Taylor Road at Te Kao early on Friday afternoon, while police described the occupants of a car that rolled on Hukatere Road, inside Aupouri Forest just inland from 90 Mile Beach, on Sunday as lucky to escape without serious injury.

"It could have been really nasty," an officer said, "the driver's door missing a very big stump by inches."