Survivor can't forget pain of sister's road death

By MATHEW DEARNALEY

Otahuhu motor crash survivor Michael Tufuga celebrated his 18th birthday yesterday on the World Health Organisation's road safety day, with gnawing sadness for a sister whose luck ran out.

He will never erase the memory of a winter's afternoon eight years ago when, with 12-year-old Barbara holding his hand on a pedestrian crossing, she was hit and killed by a truck.

Barbara, whom he recalled yesterday as an "irradiant" big sister and special friend, was escorting him across Mangere Rd to after-school piano lessons when the truck ran a red light and struck her.

Their parents, Irene and Lauina Tufuga, were devastated by Barbara's death but yesterday expressed their eternal gratitude that Michael escaped physical injury.

"I don't know what we would have done if we had lost Michael as well," said Mrs Tufuga from Nelson, where the family are attending a cousin's wedding.

Barbara and Michael attended St Joseph's School, whose pupils are constantly reminded of Barbara by a photo outside principal Liz Horgan's office.

This week the St Joseph's pupils staged a dramatic road safety demonstration by lying across Queen St depicting road crash victims.

Michael, now a senior student of De La Salle College who is planning to attend art school next year, says his parents are constantly drumming the road safety message into him and his two adult sisters.

But Mrs Tufuga says her main efforts are devoted to safeguarding a 7-year-old grandson, Nathan, who attends St Joseph's and whose mother walks him from car to school each day.

She said it was probably just as well she did not watch Monday's spectacle in which 51 older pupils had outlines of their bodies chalked across Queen St to represent that number of children killed on Auckland roads since 1999.

This followed their rendition of a song in which they vowed to keep "Safe in Otahuhu".

"They have beautiful voices but when they sing my tears drop", Mrs Tufuga said, "because it is just like my daughter is there singing with them."