KEY POINTS:
"My mummy and daddy are dead and I've got to be strong."
Those were the words of 5-year-old Reef Coombes, who yesterday survived a collision with a freight train that left her orphaned. Her parents Brent, 39, and Renee, 35, were killed at a railway crossing on State Highway 1.
Reef was speaking to her aunt Kim Smith, of Auckland, who is now the little girl's guardian after the death of her parents at one of three level crossing on our main state highway that has no barrier arms - a warning device that costs just $150,000.
"What can I say? It's a tragedy," said Lex Henry, deputy chairman of state rail body Ontrack. "But I don't think every time there's a fatality at a particular crossing, that on a cost-benefit analysis, we need to go off and install [barrier] arms."
His comments will reignite debate over rail crossing safety, with the New Zealand Safety Council demanding "bureaucrats" stop "blaming victims".
Reef was pulled from the smoking wreck of a car at Ohingaiti, south of Taihape, yesterday morning. Renee and Brent had to be cut from the wreckage.
Brent was a crop sprayer and Renee a kindergarten teacher - they were immigrants who moved here a couple of years ago and lived in Newlands in Wellington.
Kim Smith told the Herald on Sunday last night that the Coombes had moved to New Zealand from South Africa in October 2005 and had worked hard to build a new life in their chosen country. Brent was her brother.
"Reef is just beautiful, she is a real sweetie. She has been really strong but I suppose she doesn't really understand it at the moment. [She's] 5 years old and I don't expect she would understand death.
"I have spoken to Reef and the first thing she said was: 'My mummy and daddy are dead and I've got to be strong.' I said, 'Sweetie, we will be there as soon as we can'. We are the only family Reef has here."
Smith said she and husband John learned of the accident at midday when police arrived at their home in Mairangi Bay. "I was absolutely horrified. I thought it was just a bad dream, really. We all know tragedy happens but it is just such a shock when it happens to you and to lose two people that you love dearly in one blow. To leave one little girl parentless... is just not fair."
The Coombes stayed with the Smiths when they moved to New Zealand and later moved to Wellington, where they had just built a new house. Brent commuted each weekend to his business in Nelson, Work Helicopters. Just last week the family had their first outing in the sky - flying over central Wellington. Renee had given up teaching and began a new job last week as an office administrator.
Smith and her husband John are leaving for Wellington this morning to care for Reef, who attends primary school there.
"She is with friends of Brent and Renee's who have a little girl so they are playing together tonight. I don't know what we will say to her when we see her. Over the phone I told her that we will see her soon and sent her lots of hugs and kisses.
"Her granny from South Africa has called her, too. They are absolutely devastated at the fact of a little person being left orphaned."
Smith said the Coombes moved to New Zealand for Reef - "to give her the best life possible and to provide the best safety possible".
"They loved the freedom of New Zealand and little Reef always enjoyed going to the parks and having picnics with her mum and dad."
At the accident scene, a female volunteer fire officer comforted Reef in a fire engine while rescue workers fought to free her parents. The woman later went with her to Wanganui Hospital in the ambulance, where family friends later collected her.
The car, heading north, was struck by the southbound-train as it crossed the railway lines. The impact flung the car in the air and sent it rolling for 50m.
Eyewitness Brian Speers was looking out kitchen window and could see the train coming. "All of a sudden a white car just drove across in front of it. There was a loud bang and then the car just went straight up in the air." Speers said that just by looking at the wreck he knew the passengers would have been killed.
Shelley Bruce was one of the first to arrive at the accident scene. She said Reef clung to man who pulled her from the wreck, who then took her away to shield her from the accident scene. "How that little kiddie survived is amazing. Amazing."
Senior Constable Les Maddaford, of the central district serious crash unit, said police were still investigating the cause, but sunstrike from the rising sun could be a factor.
The Ohingaiti crossing is only one of three that cross SH1 in the North Island which do not have arm barriers.
Ontrack spokesman Kevin Ramshaw said lights and bells were working in the tiny town but tight "S" bends meant arm barriers could not be installed at that particular crossing. Transit NZ plans to re-route SH1 to go over the railway line at Ohingaiti, with work to begin in the next 12 months.
Transport Safety Minister Harry Duynhoven said he was surprised to hear that a SH1 rail crossing did not have barrier arms. The $150,000 to put in barrier arms was "peanuts" compared with the family's grief, he said.
Arm barriers at high-risk intersections needed to be reviewed, Duynhoven said. "Our railway infrastructure has got a lot behind the rest of the developed world because it was asset-stripped for a number of years."
Ontrack's Lex Henry said arm barriers each costing $150,000 at all of the 1400 crossings were not practical.
"At the end of the day there's thousands of crossings at many places in New Zealand. From a practical point, unless they are high-risk sites... what is the real benefit-cost analysis?"
But Dave Calvert, director of the NZ Safety Council lobby group and a safety inspector of 30 years, said he did want barriers at every crossing. "Two red lights flashing are invisible if you have sun in your eyes. And the bells are inaudible from 25m away even if the engine is off."
"If you make a mistake you shouldn't pay with your life. It's absolutely unacceptable.
"All they ever do is blame the victim, that's what annoys me."
