No charity for cycling pair

Ben Scully checks on friend Brendan Dallas. Photo / Janna Dixon

Two friends on a charity cycle ride from Auckland to Wellington were left for dead after being hit by a car on State Highway One just north of Mercer early yesterday morning.

Brendan Dallas, 24, and Ben Scully, 23, raised $17,000 for Cure Kids with a Cape Reinga to Bluff cycle ride in December last year, but after Ben hurt his knee they were not able to complete the Auckland to Wellington leg.

Wanting to finish the ride, they planned to cycle to Wellington this weekend and left Auckland at 2am yesterday.

The pair, both from Wellington, were about 72km out of Hamilton when they were hit.

"Ben was behind me and he got hit first and went flying over the barrier, still attached to his bike," says Dallas, who lives in New Plymouth.

"Then I got hit and went over the barrier. I must have slid about 30m over bush at the side of the road and ended up in the Waikato River.

"I was initially going under because my legs weren't working, then I managed to get them going and swam to one of the pillars and I called out to Scully and he came down and I managed to crawl out of the water onto one of the rocks."

Scully tried to wave down passing cars but to no avail until a truck driver stopped and gave the pair blankets until emergency services arrived.

Dallas suffered a broken vertebrae and injured the ligaments around his spine, while Scully suffered severe bruising. Both were taken to Middlemore Hospital and Scully was discharged during the day.

The men are perplexed as to how the vehicle managed to hit them. "There was no traffic, he could have gone into the other lane," says Scully.

"We were about as far left as you could be and we were lit up like a Christmas tree - we had lights on our back and high-visibility reflective gear," says Dallas.

Police said the pair were lucky to be alive. The vehicle was likely to be a light van or truck and would have damage to the left hand side as well as a missing wing mirror.

Vicki Lee, chief executive of Cure Kids, a charity dedicated to researching life-threatening childhood illnesses, was saddened to hear of the accident.

To support the fundraising ride, visit www.fundraiseonline.co.nz/tourforcurekidsm