Friday 12 January, 2007 at 5:24PM (Nereus)  ::  permalink  ::  comments (1)

That was the title to a front page article in the New Zealand Herald today (today being Saturday 13th January in NZ). The family in the article was my sister, brother-in-law, and their four kids. Fortunately they are all ok - Jo and Alex have since been released from hospital, apparently badly bruised and no doubt shaken, but nothing broken. Very lucky, considering their vehicle - a Mitsubishi Pajero - fell 25 meters down a near-vertical cliff and landed on the roof in a shallow stream (25 metres is over 80 feet - about the same height as a seven story building). Amazing they are all ok, actually. Here's the report from the NZ Herald:

A family of six escaped serious injury when their 4WD plunged 25 metres down a bank and landed upside down in a stream yesterday.
The father, mother and their four children aged 7, 11, 13 and 15 were all wearing seatbelts when their Mitsubishi Pajero crashed off the Kopu-Hikuai Road about 4km from the Thames turnoff.
The mother and a boy, believed to be the 13-year-old, were carried from the scene on stretchers but the rest of the family walked to waiting ambulances.
The Taupo family, on their way to Pauanui on the Coromandel Peninsula, were helped from the vehicle by motorists who saw the accident.
Thames police Sergeant Jim Corbett said the road was greasy from rain and the Mitsubishi appeared to have lost control on a corner.
"It hung on to the edge and then stumbled through bush."
Thames fire chief Greg Rendall said the bank was "close to vertical" but the scrub may have slowed the vehicle's decent into the low-running stream.
Emergency services accessed the site from a nearby farm and crossed 300 metres of paddock to reach the family.
Mr Rendall said: "Without seatbelts ... I'd hate to think what their injuries would have been."

I know that road very well - I used to drive through the gorge on my way to Whangamata or Tairua a couple of times every week - it's certainly a dangerously winding and narrow road with little room for error. I haven't heard from Jo directly, the news came via my Mum in Auckland, and even she doesn't have many details yet. I'm so relieved nobody was seriously hurt, and so glad Jo and Pete had the sense to make sure everyone was buckled in, not just the driver and front passenger, as is often the case with families in cars.