Girl suffers critical head injury

A young Napier girl and a Central Hawke's Bay man were flown to hospitals in Wellington and Christchurch after serious incidents on Hawke's Bay roads.

A young Napier girl and a Central Hawke's Bay man were flown to hospitals in Wellington and Christchurch after serious incidents on Hawke's Bay roads on Friday and Saturday.

The 10-year-old girl was hit by a car when she ran into the path of the vehicle late on Friday in Napier and later flown to Wellington Hospital with a critical head injury and was early last night reported to be in a serious condition in intensive care.

The accident happened about 5.20pm on Friday as the girl was crossing Wycliffe St, Onekawa. Yesterday Hawke's Bay Road Policing officer Constable Marty Lack emphasised the driver, a man travelling with his wife as a passenger, was not at fault and stopped immediately at the scene.

Mr Lack said the man had been unable to stop in time to avoid the girl who had followed a friend on to the road Kea Crossing near Te Kura Kaupapa Maori o Te Ara Hou. Kea crossings are used as pedestrian crossings only when monitored by school patrols and it was not monitored at the time, being just on nightfall and with the school having closed for the day more than two hours earlier.

The girl was taken by the St John Ambulance to hospital in Hastings, but deteriorated during the evening and was flown to Wellington where she was understood to have been in an induced coma yesterday.

A man, understood to be aged 20, flown to Hawke's Bay Regional Hospital with back and head injuries after a crash on a rural road south of Waipukurau on Saturday night was yesterday flown to Christchurch for specialist care.

The man was understood to have been a passenger in a car driven by another man and which crashed through a fence about 9.30pm. The crash happened in Arlington Rd, a short distance from Porangahau Rd.

Emergency services were called to a similar incident near Haumoana about an hour later, when a car crashed through a railing near Black Bridge.

No one could be found at the scene when police arrived, but the suspected driver was found apparently walking home soon afterwards.

Two other people were taken to hospital in Hastings with moderate to serious injuries after motorbike crashes yesterday afternoon.

A man was believed to have fractured a leg when the motorbike he was riding crashed on Springfield Rd, near Taradale, soon after 4pm, and a motocross rider was injured in a Hawke's Bay Motorcycle Club event off Raukawa Valley Rd, south of Bridge Pa.

A utility vehicle was reported to have rolled north of Kotemaori on the Napier-Wairoa road early last night, but the driver was understood to have escaped injury.