Boy tells of horror in aftermath of road accident

Sixteen-year-old Sam Bates cradled the head of his injured and weeping friend at the roadside after the car in which they were passengers struck a tree head-on near the North Island town of Masterton on Saturday.

"All I could think of was her, she was in a lot of pain. I undid our belts, and we walked away from the car. I held her head in my lap."

"She had marks and stuff from the seatbelt and couldn't lie down. She was screaming and crying. I didn't leave her side."

Sam, of Upper Hutt, was speaking yesterday during an interview at the Taratahi Agricultural Training Centre where he and the other three people involved in the crash are student boarders. The names of the other three involved have not been made public.

He suffered bruising from his seat belt at the hip and chest and neck injuries, for which he is wearing a brace.

Sam was accompanied at the interview by centre head Nicola Morris and both would not name the other students involved in the crash without their identities being first revealed by police, who declined to do so.

All three passengers in the crashed Honda Civic car, aged from 16 to 18, were admitted with minor to moderate injuries and later discharged from Masterton Hospital.

The driver, 17, was cut from the wreckage by emergency services before being airlifted from the scene by helicopter and rushed with critical head and back injuries to Wellington Hospital.

The female passenger, from Auckland, and the other male passenger, from Wanganui, have returned home for a week to be with family. The driver, from Gisborne, was still in a critical condition yesterday with family at his bedside in Wellington Hospital.

The lunchtime collision came after the friends were returning from a shopping trip to Mangatainoka "for T-shirts and jandals at the brewery", Sam said.

The car was not speeding at the time of the crash and none of the four had been drinking, he said.

"We were all wearing seatbelts. We would have been killed I reckon if we weren't."

Sam said that as "there were cows to milk" the group were returning to Masterton when the crash happened on a moderate left hand bend near Mount Bruce.

Sam said he was in the process of handing over a CD so someone could change the music when "I heard someone say 'aww shit'.

"I looked up and by that time we were off the road and the car was shaking. It wasn't going nuts yet but it was shuddering. I saw the manuka. It was a whole patch.

"I don't remember what happened next but we went head-on into the manuka and the car swung round to the side.

"I didn't think it had happened for a couple of seconds."

The front seat passenger "had blood all over his face and was smashing at his door to get out," although Sam said he was more concerned with his female fellow passenger in the backseat.

"She was screaming. She looked scared and was bruised and hurting from the seat beat," he said.

"I dragged her out of the car and reached forward to look into the driver's seat. His head was hanging. I yelled his name but he wasn't responding. He was stuck and I didn't try to get him out."

Sam said "it felt like ages" before emergency services arrived as he tried his best to calm and console his friends.

Sam returned to the centre yesterday with the hopes of resuming class and supporting the fellow students also involved in the crash, Mrs Morris said.

The other two students discharged from hospital on Saturday will not be returning for at least a week, she said, to allow time for them to reconcile and recuperate.

"If there is such a thing as a real accident, I think this really is one," she said.

"We have very good teaching and hostel staff and our focus right now is supporting our students and their families.

Sam may also need some time off class and we have arranged for him to speak with Victim Support."

She said the parents of the critically injured student had chartered a plane from Gisborne to be with their son, and that she was receiving daily updates on his condition.

- WAIRARAPA TIMES-AGE