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Woman hit as truck wheel gate-crashes cafe
– Monday, 05 January 2009
JOHN KIRK-ANDERSON
INVESTIGATION: Constable Aaron Reid talks to cafe patron Carol Baxter close to the runaway wheel.
A woman was flown to hospital after a freak accident in which a wheel came loose from a passing truck, bounded across a carpark and slammed into a crowded cafe on Banks Peninsula.
The wheel hit between two large windows, bowing in the wall and smashing the windows into the cafe.
The waist-high wheel, weighing between 30kg and 40kg, struck the Blue Duck Cafe on State Highway 75 to Akaroa after it fell off a trailer carrying a large boat used for fishing charters yesterday.
A 57-year-old woman in the cafe, Denise Wilson, was knocked to the ground by the force of the impact and lay motionless among the shattered glass with chest injuries.
Police said that had the wheel hit the window and entered the cafe, the accident would have been disastrous. .
She was taken to hospital by the Westpac Rescue Helicopter, where she was found to have minor injuries."
The wheel hit with a "huge explosion", Baxter said.
"I froze and all I could say was, `Oh my God, my God, my God'.
"If it had come through the window, it would have killed her.
Moments earlier she saw Wilson standing close to where the wheel hit. It had come off the trailer, across the bend, missed a tree and a fence and then hit between the two panes of glass, Hanson said."
John Hanson, a friend of Wilson's who was in the cafe with them, said the tyre hitting the cafe was a "one-in-a-million shot".
McWhinnie said he glanced up and saw a "black thing" bounce off the road.
Akaroa Senior Constable Steve Ditmer was standing outside the cafe talking to motorcyclist Bob McWhinnie when the wheel hit."
Ditmer said the incident was "an absolute freak of a thing".
"Next thing, there was a mighty explosion like a bomb.
The truck's owner, Roger Withell, said it was an "unfortunate accident"
He said he was glad the injured woman was not seriously hurt and would be "getting the windows fixed".
The wheel, on top of another wheel on the trailer, had been secured but had come loose at some stage of the journey from Duvauchelle, he said.
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Ditmer said the investigation into the incident was continuing and it was not yet known if charges would be laid
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Attack on goat shocks family
By FELICITY ROOKES felicity.rookes@tnl.nz – Wednesday, 10 December 2008
BRADLEY AMBROSE/
WOUNDED: Wayne Trethewey soothes his family’s pet goat Mordecai after the animal was attacked during a party at the weekend.co.
Mordecai was found bloodied and dazed by owner Michelle Trethewey tethered outside their home on Auroa Rd, near Kaponga, early on Sunday morning.
Heartlessthugs held a Taranaki family's pet goat down and hacked one of its horns off with an axe in a brutal weekend attack. "At first I thought he had been scared and gone under the bush, got caught and lost the horn – then I saw the bloody axe lying beside him," Mrs Trethewey said.
"The neighbours had a huge party the night before and had been doing burn-outs up the street right next to where he was tethered," she said.
"They had an axe and looking at the horn it's not certain whether they chopped it off or just grabbed the horn and held his head, ripped it off and twisted it," husband Wayne said.
Mordecai looked like he had been held down on the ground and someone had used a lot of force to rip the horn off.
"We have had him since I was two, it was pretty upsetting knowing someone did something like that," Michaela said.
The sharemilkers' 15-year-old daughter Michaela was heartbroken when she heard what had happened.
"There were cars everywhere, there would have been 100 people at the party.
Mr Trethewey and his family are disgusted and suspect partygoers are the perpetrators of the vicious assault. The road was left in a mess with bottles and cans everywhere. They were rowdy and a lot of them looked under age.
Police questioned the neighbour who claims to have no knowledge of the incident." Mr Trethewey said.
The stub and the other horn were tied with bailing twine by the vet to stop the bleeding.
Yesterday, Mordecai was subdued, his stub is bandaged, his eye swollen and his coat matted with dry blood.
"We have had him for 13 years and he was the children's pet, it has been very upsetting for them.
Mr Trethewey wants to find the people responsible."
While Mordecai is a hardy animal, the family credits his longevity with a solid diet of fresh fruit. It's a pretty horrible thing to do to the poor goat. . Oranges also need to be chopped as he doesn't like the skin, he's very fussy," Mrs Trethewey said.
Jane Lawrence, president of South Taranaki SPCA, said ripping or cutting a goat's horn off would be excruciating for the animal.
"There is living tissue in there, people don't realise that just because the horn is hard, that there is actually nerves and tissue at the base of the horn and it really hurts them. To do something that mindless is cruelty, it really is," Mrs Lawrence said.
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Calculus exam heavy going
The Wednesday, 19 November 2008
HEAVY GOING: Genevieve Krefft balances a hefty calculus text book on her head – "symbolising my defeat". The 17-year-old had just come from her level-three calculus exam yesterday.
Asked about her chances of passing, she said: "Let's hope so.
Seventeen-year-old Genevieve Kreftt, a year 13 Wellington High School pupil, said she ran out of time during the tough three-hour calculus exam, which she was just happy to put behind her."
There may also be an additional reason why some pupils are finding exams tricky. I don't want to predict anything.
Deputy chief executive Bali Haque said the papers were checked several times, but errors occasionally slipped through. .
The calculus exam had a set of brackets missing on a formula sheet while the biology exam wrongly labelled a graph on movement of larvae in relation to high-tide times. "Where an error occurs in an exam paper, candidates will not be disadvantaged," he emphasised.
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Chippindale’s last moments haunt son
The Saturday, 06 September 2008
The son of Ron Chippindale, killed by a teenage dangerous driver, says he is haunted by the thought his father would have heard, then seen, the car roaring toward him before being hit.
In Wellington District Court yesterday, Porirua teenager Henry Lingman, 19, who drove the car that killed the air accident investigator in February, was ordered to do nine months' home detention, 240 hours' community work, and was disqualified from driving for two years.
Lingman had been driving unsupervised on a learner's licence, the second time he had been caught doing that.
He had pleaded guilty to dangerous driving resulting in death.
He said it was affecting his life, job and relationships.
Mr Chippindale's son, Dennis, told the court yesterday how awful it had been to get the call telling him of the accident; at having to drive past the accident scene to see his mother, and to have to identify his 74-year-old father's body.
It would haunt him that his father, out on his morning walk, would have first heard, then seen, the vehicle roaring toward him.
His mother was no longer the self-reliant and confident person he had known.
Judge Peter Butler said the crash had come about because of Lingman's speed, estimated at between 86kmh and 94kmh, and his inexperience in trying to speed up when the car began fishtailing, rather than slowing down.
Lingman, having forgotten his work boots, had been returning home along Whitford Brown Ave in Porirua on February 12 and was travelling above the 70kmh speed limit when he lost control of the car, mounted the footpath and hit Mr Chippindale.
Judge Butler said Lingman had received an infringement notice in 2006 for driving a car unsupervised.
Lingman was genuinely remorseful and a letter he had written to the Chippindale family showed his sincerity.
Lingman had not driven since, Mr Ross said, and was tormented by what had happened.
Defence lawyer Alasdair Ross said Lingman had shown courage in wanting to meet the family of the man he killed.