One dead, four injured in Auckland crash

Scene of last night's fatal accident on the Northwestern motorway. Photo / Michael Craig

A driver racing the wrong way down a major motorway last night smashed into six cars, leaving one person dead and four others injured.

The accident left seven mangled cars scattered across 150m of Auckland's Northwestern Motorway and survivors who couldn't believe they were alive.

The person killed in the crash, an Asian woman, was a passenger in the wrong-way car, which struck the other vehicles between the Rosebank Rd and Patiki Rd motorway off-ramps about 8.40pm.

The car was driven by a European man aged in his late-80s who was in a critical condition in Auckland Hospital. Three others sustained moderate injuries.

Among the survivors was Kanti Patel, 40, who said he was driving westbound with his family when he saw a car coming straight at him in the middle lane.

Patel said he swerved at the last minute and the oncoming car smashed into the passenger side where his eldest daughter was sitting.

His car flipped several times before coming to a halt on its roof. Patel, his two daughters aged 14 and 9, and wife managed to crawl out of a broken window on the driver's side.

"I said 'Oh my God' when I saw the car coming straight for us," he said. "I couldn't believe it. It was terrifying. It felt like we were in a dream. The kids were crying, my family were very shaken up. God saved us."

Patel, who owns the Kohi Dairy in Kohimarama Rd, Auckland, said it was a "miracle" that he and his family only suffered minor cuts and bruises.

A Remuera woman was driving to a 50th birthday party in West Auckland when she saw the car spiralling towards her.

"It was rolling towards me. I remember seeing its underneath. I remember getting banged. I was holding my wheel tightly and dodging the cars."

Asked what went through her mind, the mother-of-three, said, "It was my kids, my kids."

The car had emerged from traffic giving almost no time to react. "I'm amazed I came out of it. I thought 'it's going to hit me'. I can't believe I'm here."

One of the first drivers to meet the wrong-way driver was geologist Jared Flynn, 26, who was driving friends out to West Auckland.

"I just swerved to miss a car coming the wrong way then I spun out and hit the barrier."

Passenger Wesley Taplin, 22, who works in radio, said: "It was all too fast. We spun around." The third passenger, who did not want to be named, said: "All I saw was two headlights and what looked like a white car."

Police, ambulance and fire service staff raced to the scene to find clusters of people distraught and looking for help.

Some among the stunned survivors wandered the motorway, picking up debris and laying it at the roadside.

Motorway patrol officer Senior Sergeant Grant Miller said the accident was "probably the worst case scenario" for the patrol.

He said an elderly woman who was a passenger in the Galant was flung from the car and killed. "We suspect that a passenger in the vehicle has been ejected and that person has been run over by the four-by-four," he said.

Serious crash unit police sergeant Stu Kearns said police were trying to determine where the elderly driver had entered the motorway. "It was a bit like a bomb site," he said of the scene.

He said police wanted to speak to anyone who was in the green four-door Mitsubishi Galant travelling east in the westbound lane before the crash occurred.

The motorway was expected to be closed until early this morning. Officers investigating the crash can be contacted on (09) 481 0300.