KEY POINTS:
The owner of a crashed four-wheel-drive tourist vehicle which left a New Zealander holidaymaker dead has told how he came across the wreckage.
Paraparaumu tourist Colum Donn Bourke, 67, was killed and his wife Barbara, 61, was badly injured when the vehicle is thought to have blown a tyre and rolled in Australia's Kakadu National Park on July 9.
Mr Bourke was apparently not wearing a seat belt and was thrown from the vehicle, dying instantly, police said.
Mrs Bourke remains in Royal Darwin Hospital in a serious condition with spinal injuries.
Tour company owner Paul Simpson told the ABC yesterday he was driving along the Kakadu Highway with his family three hours after the crash when he came across the wrecked vehicle.
He drove went straight to nearby Cooinda airport to help with the evacuation of Mrs Bourke and the other injured tourists and had since visited them in hospital.
The Bourke family issued a statement late yesterday expressing their gratitude to the people who assisted Mr Bourke and made particular reference to several people who helped Mrs Bourke while she was trapped inside the wreckage.
Some of them shaded Mrs Bouke from the blazing sun and another helped calm her.
- NZPA
