ROGER MORONEY
When John De La Haye of Hastings asked his Napier brother-in-law, Bill Patterson, if he could borrow his car to shift some of his belongings to his new home in Wairoa, Mr Patterson was happy to oblige.
But the shift, using a large steel mesh-sided trailer, did not go well
yesterday.
Just before 2pm, Mr Patterson received a call from Mr De La Haye to say he had come to grief near the Devil's Elbow. The car had slid off the road and crashed about five metres down a bank and into thick gorse.
While Mr De La Haye was not injured, emergency services said he was lucky the car had come to a stop where it had. A steep gully was only a few more metres away.
Mr De La Haye was heading back to Hastings, having delivered some of his belongings, when the accident happened.
He escaped with nothing more than a slight cut to one of his legs when he clambered out of the late model Ford Falcon XR6.
The incident was one of three attended by emergency services in Hawke's Bay at the weekend.
Five cars were damaged when a truck carrying small stones lost half its load at Whakaki, north of Wairoa, on Saturday morning.
Wairoa police said windows were smashed and panels damaged when the truck, which was heading to Gisborne, spilled part of its cargo.
No-one was hurt.
And about 9pm on Friday night, State Highway 2 was blocked at Morere for about two hours after a car went out of control, left the road and rolled.
No-one was hurt in the accident but a passenger was trapped in the car for a short time.
