Canoe impales truck driver

File photo / NZ Herald

A man was last night in a critical condition in hospital after being impaled by a canoe near Levin.

The 64-year-old was driving a car transporter when the accident happened about 12.30pm yesterday.

Another vehicle heading towards the truck was towing a trailer carrying racing rowboats, stacked up on several levels.

One of the boats became loose, swung out from the trailer and smashed through the oncoming truck's windscreen, pinning the driver.

The truck crashed into a paddock on State Highway 1, near the Kimberley Rd intersection, and partially on to a railway line.

Matt Sherlock, a petrol tanker driver who was behind the vehicle towing the rowboats, said one of the boats came loose at the front before "swinging out on to the oncoming lane by about three metres ... like a jousting pole."

Mr Sherlock said because the boat was on one of the higher levels, the driver would not have been able to see it through his mirror and so probably did not know anything was wrong.

"I was flashing my lights and everything, but he didn't see me. I can only go 90km/h so I couldn't overtake him. Other cars following were starting to drop back, worried that [the boat] was going to fall off.

"It was sticking out of the top rack, so all the oncoming cars were going under it - until the truck came."

Mr Sherlock said he tried to warn other truck drivers, over his radio, to watch out for the vehicle towing the boats.

However, the truck driver who was hit was probably concentrating on merging into the other lane, looking in his mirror, and did not see the boat sticking out into his lane in the vehicle coming towards him, Mr Sherlock said.

"It just smashed into the windscreen. When he stopped, I ran over and opened the door and asked if he was all right.

"I asked if he could get out and he points down and says, 'Um, that's right through me'. What I thought was a raincoat was the boat, right between his legs. Blood was just running down his legs and on to his boots. He was starting to pass out."

Emergency services had to cut the driver from the truck

Palmerston North Rescue Helicopter flew the critically injured man to Palmerston North Hospital.

Pilot Fergus MacLachlan said part of the canoe was left sticking out of the truck windscreen.

"I thought it was a road sign at first and then someone said it was a canoe. I thought, 'Ooh heck, that's not good'.

"You go to a lot of these jobs and you just think of the pain that some of these people are going through."

A Fire Service spokesman said: "It was a freak accident. It's not one you will find replicated again in a great hurry."