An Auckland woman is grieving the loss of her beloved dog, Lion, but thankful she didn’t suffer the same fate after a fleeing driver slammed into her on the motorway.
The resulting crash completely wrote off her car, which barrel-rolled as the offending driver’s vehicle went airborne.
Now, the woman is left wondering why police didn’t hold off pursuing the car in what she called a police chase that created an “unnecessary life-threatening scenario”.
The 62-year-old woman, who the Herald has agreed not to name, had left her Totara Park home on a hot Thursday to visit a strawberry farm.
She didn’t usually take her dog with her on trips, but she figured the trip would be a simple pop out and then head back home.
The windows were down as she entered the Southern Motorway, very few cars were on the road at lunchtime which meant the woman didn’t check her mirrors as frequently.
As she reached an overpass on State Highway 20, something behind the woman distracted her.
“I heard a noise, I sensed something was going on,” the woman told the Herald.
That was the last thing her mind registered before she found herself surrounded by glass and her Mazda Verisa overturned.
It was a serious crash. Her car - which had been travelling 100km/h at the time - ended up colliding with the median barrier and its rear guard became lodged.
The woman involved had been in a “much worse” crash 35 years prior, however during the former she was knocked out during the incident.
When her car was hit on Thursday, she was fully conscious when the car came to a stop.
“My first thought was to just get out of the car,” the woman said.
“I was turned upside down, relatively unscathed and so I undid my seatbelt and got out through the rear of the left window, which was still open.”
When the woman escaped, she was greeted by a policewoman standing over her.
“I thought ‘how did the police get here so fast’?”
Her confusion was realised when multiple armed police carrying rifles darted past her towards a totalled black SUV.
The vehicle had gone airborne when it collided with the woman’s car as it crossed the left barrier and ended up on the grass bank. It was clearly the vehicle that collided with hers.
Police explained the situation to the woman, who was still coming to terms with what happened.
Allegedly, the man driving the SUV had threatened somebody earlier in the day, his car was located later by police and when they tried pulling him over, he fled.
“I assume he got onto the motorway and floored it, trying to get away,” the woman said.
“I was told there was a helicopter in play and a couple of cars as well.”
The crash brought traffic near Auckland Airport to a standstill while emergency services responded, the incident reportedly involved a firearm.
At first, the collision brought closure to both northbound State Highway 20 lanes, the State Highway didn’t fully reopen again until 5.15pm.
Inspector Jason Homan said the police helicopter Eagle helped observe a vehicle of interest during this afternoon’s incident.
“Around midday police units on the ground signalled the vehicle to stop near George Bolt Memorial Drive,” he said in a statement on Thursday to the media.
“The vehicle has subsequently failed to stop and accelerated away from police.”
Homan also confirmed in the statement that three people had suffered moderate injuries due to the crash.
However, the woman tragically came to discover one casualty had not been reported.
“I couldn’t see my dog anywhere when I crawled out. The police looked in the car for him, I was too afraid to look,” she said.
Eventually, Lion’s body was discovered by the woman’s partner, who climbed a multiple-foot fence to reach the crash as traffic was backed up.
“I don’t give a rat about the car, I can go to trauma counselling. But the dog is so upsetting still, the fact he’s no longer here,” she said.
“Lion was seven years old, such a beautiful dog - really fit and full of life. It’s so sad not to have him around anymore.”
The woman was taken to the hospital, it was there that police explained to the woman they believed there was a possibility the offender might have kidnapped somebody, holding them in the car.
With two police officers in her family, the woman has sympathy for the tough job police have to tackle escalating crime.
“But they’re risking lives to do it, I’m not sure how you balance that,” she said.
“They initiated something that could have done far more than kill just my dog, they tackled a life-threatening scenario but created another life-threatening scenario.”
The woman is confused why police couldn’t have found an alternative way to catch the offender, instead of intensifying the attempt through pursuit.
“Why did they have to catch him so fast? People get hurt, innocent people with nothing to do with the crime,” she said.
“Auckland is not Los Angeles or New York, places where you can lose people easily. They can find other ways to catch them.”
Following the incident, police said the Serious Crash Unit attended the incident and would be investigating the circumstances of the crash.
When approached by the Herald about the woman’s concerns, police media said the incident was being investigated by the Independent Police Conduct Authority.