Damage to Andrew Pringle's car after it was hit by a slip on Anzac Parade on Saturday night, May 20.
Damage to Andrew Pringle's car after it was hit by a slip on Anzac Parade on Saturday night, May 20.
A Whanganui couple were hit by a landslip while driving across town to spend the night with family after being evacuated from their home.
The slip happened around 9.30pm on Saturday, May 20 on State Highway 4 Anzac Parade near Georgetti Rd and blocked both lanes of the road.
Andrew Pringle said he and his wife had been evacuated from their home at the Kaumātua Flats in Putiki due to the risk of the area flooding during torrential rain.
They were driving towards the Dublin St Bridge on their way to stay overnight at a family member’s house in Aramoho when the land broke away.
“I caught something out of the corner of my eye, and it was just a mass coming down the hill,” Pringle said.
The land was moving quickly and, realising he wouldn’t be able to outrun it or brake in time to avoid it, he turned the car to the left to avoid being hit directly on the side.
“It hit me side-on on the backdoor, and came on again into my door and then took us as far as it wanted to take us.”
He estimated the car got carried around 30 metres off the road.
Both he and his wife were shaken but didn’t sustain any major injuries, though Andrew hurt his leg and was trapped on his side of the car by the dirt.
His wife was able to escape from her side and got the help of another motorist, who helped him get to the other side of the car and get out.
“I’m a big guy, I’m 6′2″ and 140 kilograms, so getting over the console to get into my wife’s seat and out the door wasn’t an easy feat, but he was guiding me... he was bloody good, actually,” he said.
The slip closed both lanes of Anzac Parade. Photo / Finn Williams
Fire and Emergency New Zealand and police then attended the scene - the officers who arrived the same ones were who’d told the couple to evacuate.
“They said, ‘Not you again’, and I said, ‘Mhmm’.”
The car was towed away from the scene the same night with the right front wheel ripped off the control arm and the bodywork on the same side badly dented. The airbags had also gone off due to the impact of the slip.
The tow driver told Pringle he was lucky he had turned the car before the slip hit, as the result could have been much worse.
The damage to the car's right front wheel.
Now the couple was back home in Putiki, getting together details for their car insurance and ripping out their home’s carpet and underlay as water had got in under the door during the flood.
Luckily, the carpets were the only thing damaged.
“While we were over in Aramoho, I was lying awake in the middle of the morning thinking ... with all that water, we might be looking at a bloody swimming pool inside, but we didn’t, thank God,” he said.
