A car was sent spinning in a rush-hour crash before it mounted the footpath and fatally struck a man walking his dog.
Police are investigating the pedestrian death on a stretch of New North Rd near the Mt Albert shops yesterday evening.
A bystander told the Herald he saw the car that hit a pedestrian “spinning” out of control for several metres.
“I heard a bang and looked out the window.
”The car appeared to have been rear-ended on the left side, which sent it spinning.
”I saw the guy on the ground and they were doing CPR and then they stopped, and I thought, ‘Oh, you don’t stop, that’s not good’.”
A local business owner said he heard the sound of a car hitting a kerb and then saw the vehicle spinning across the road.
”The silver car looked like it had been hit from the back.
”Then I saw all the cars facing the wrong direction and then the man on the footpath with the brown dog two metres away from him.”
The business owner said he was still in shock from what he saw.
”I [felt] like, ‘Oh my god, what is going on’.
”Last night I woke up at two o’clock and could not go back to sleep.
”It’s the first time I’ve seen [something like] this.”
He thought the pedestrian was in his late 30s or early 40s.
Soon after the crash a nearby shop worker told the Herald they heard a “massive thud” before emergency services rushed to the scene.
“One of the guys in here saw a man lying on the road unresponsive ... I’m not sure if he was trying to cross the road or was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
The person said a group of five or six people surrounded the man after the incident and “attempted to help” before emergency services arrived minutes later and reportedly performed CPR on the pedestrian.
A fallen signpost remains on the footpath at the scene of the fatal crash.
A police spokesperson said investigations were ongoing following the pedestrian death after they were struck by a vehicle.
“Sadly, police can confirm the pedestrian died at the scene despite being provided medical assistance at the scene.
“An investigation will now commence to establish the full set of circumstances surrounding the serious crash.”
The Serious Crash Unit was investigating.
The road reopened at 8pm last night.
Jaime Lyth is a multimedia journalist for the New Zealand Herald, focusing on crime and breaking news. She began working under the NZ Herald masthead in 2021, as a reporter for the Northern Advocate in Whangārei.
The 19-year-old disappeared without her wallet or mobile phone.