Broken branch crushes 6-year-old

A 6-year-old girl died when she was crushed by a branch which snapped while she and friends were climbing in a Hastings park.

Police said the girl was playing in Lochain Park, Flaxmere, when the tragedy happened.

Emergency services were called and an ambulance arrived 10 minutes later.

Senior Sergeant Greg Brown, of Hastings, said police were told the children were climbing bluegums when the girl crept out on a branch which broke at the base.

She was pinned to the ground by another part of the branch, about 10cm thick, and is thought to have died immediately.

The child's friends ran for assistance, and she had been trapped for about 15 minutes before helpers could remove the branch, Mr Brown said.

One of those who tried to save the girl said she was alerted to the accident by a friend's child who came running up her drive.

"I went to the park and saw the branch lying on this little girl. I could see she was clearly dead. Someone had to drag her out. Her eyes were open, but I knew she was dead."

It took the woman, three teenagers and another woman to remove the branch from the girl.

"It was a huge bough of a gum tree, lying across the girl's abdomen," the woman said. "I thought I was coming out just to help lift some small branch off."

She helped remove the girl from under the branch, but realised nothing could be done for her.

"The girl's older sister, about nine, turned up on the scene and burst into tears, and later the mother arrived."

Hastings District Council community services manager Stephen Bunting received an initial report yesterday.

He said an examination of the tree, which was about 35 years old, revealed it was a healthy specimen, and the collapse of the branch would not have been foreseeable.

"It's one of those terrible tragedies," Mr Bunting said.

An aspect of the council's tree-maintenance programme was to identify and remove trees or branches which posed a danger.

The branch was one of two low-slung branches which had stretched either side of the trunk, about one metre above the ground.

- NZPA