Animals left dead, dying as trailer topples

LOST STOCK: A heavy crane (background) prepares to right a Pinfolds stock-truck's trailer which overturned on Dreyers Rock Rd north of Masterton and resulted in the deaths of more than 30 sheep on board. PHOTO/LYNDA FERINGA

Thousands of dollars worth of sheep and lambs were killed after a stock truck's trailer toppled on a Mauriceville road north of Masterton yesterday morning.

Truck driver Mike Rzoska, who was not injured in the crash, said he had picked up 264 ewes and 59 spring lambs on his eight-wheeler Pinfolds company truck and trailer from a farm on Dreyers Rock Rd. He had driven about a kilometre before his almost 10-tonne trailer overturned on a bend about 10am yesterday.

Mr Rzoska sought help at a nearby farm because there was no cellphone coverage at the location. The crash left 31 ewes and two of the spring lambs dead or dying and several others with less serious injuries.

Mr Rzoska said a tyre on the trailer could have blown out or run flat, because deep gouges had been left in the tarseal for a distance of up to 200m after the 55km/h bend.

"I didn't realise the trailer had tipped over until I looked in the rear-vision mirror. The air hose came off and the air brakes were coming on, so I stopped and the trailer was already on its side."

Mr Rzoska said most of the dead animals were ewes, including several that were put down after receiving serious injuries.

Most of the lambs had been loaded on to the truck and the trailer was not full, he said. The stock lost in the crash would have been worth more than $3000 at market prices.

A Masterton Police Commercial Vehicle Investigations officer was at the scene alongside other police, Pinfolds staff, and a fire crew from Masterton. Traffic was blocked for about an hour while the truck was shifted, and a heavy crane righted the trailer.

The animals aboard the truck and trailer unit had been originally bound for a meatworks in Wanganui. Some stock wandered loose for a short while after the crash before being mustered and loaded aboard another truck and trailer from the Carterton heavy-transport firm.