44-tonne truck smashes into home

Kowhai Mason and her daughter Toiahi, 4, are lucky to be alive after the truck and trailer skidded off the motorway and smashed into their Otara home. Picture / Richard Robinson

At 3.15pm yesterday a 44-tonne truck and trailer unit careered off the Southern Motorway and into the home of Kowhai Mason and her 4-year-old daughter.

"The vehicles were coming through, I could see glass falling, like in slow motion. Everything was just slowly coming down," Miss Mason said.

"When the house started to crumble I thought Toiahi was going to get sucked in by the force."

The Otara woman, 36, and her daughter Toiahi Hepene had been watching Care Bears on TV when chaos struck at their Clayton Ave granny flat.

Truck number 574, from J Swap Contractors, had just crashed into a Beds 'R' Us van just south of the East Tamaki onramp.

With the fully laden van crushed up against the front of the truck, the two vehicles skidded across three southbound lanes of the motorway.

They hit two other small trucks and a Mitsubishi car on their way.

But the force of those collisions did little to slow the two vehicles and they ploughed off the motorway, through a wooden fence and trees.

It was at this stage Miss Mason, who could smell burning rubber, knew trouble was on its way. "I heard the crash further up the road, then felt the force coming towards us. I just grabbed my little girl."

As the van and truck and trailer unit crashed through the spare room of the flat, Miss Mason and Toiahi were thrown to the living room floor.

Glass windows shattered around them as the flat was pushed off its foundations.

Miss Mason said she was terrified during the ordeal but instinct took over as she tried to protect her daughter from falling debris.

Outside her home the van, which was transporting a bed and mattress, came to rest in between a wooden fence and tree.

The driver, Arianna English, and her 21-year-old daughter, Nikki, escaped with minor injuries.

They were taken to Middlemore Hospital with at least one of the drivers from the three vehicles hit on the motorway. One of those three vehicles suffered extensive damage.

The body of the truck came to rest on the side of the flat, while its trailer jack-knifed on top of a fence and tree. The rig was laden with maize.

Acting Sergeant Brian Riley said the driver was shaken but not injured in the crash. He said excessive speed did not appear to be a factor in the crash, which occurred during fine weather and in moderate traffic.

Southbound lanes were later closed while police removed the two small trucks and badly damaged Mitsubishi car, and last night the truck unit was taken away.

Miss Mason and Toiahi planned to spend last night at another house on the same section.