A 27-year-old man is defending charges resulting from a fatal crash in Hamilton nearly five years ago to the day that claimed the life of pedestrian Adrian Bell. Photo / Belinda Feek
A man who has a history of suffering seizure-type events told police he must have “blacked out” after clipping a ute, careering up a kerb and into a pedestrian walking along a footpath.
The momentum of the 27-year-old driver’s red Volkswagen shunted pedestrian Adrian Michael Bell through the iron gates of a property.
The driver then crashed into two parked cars inside the property, which were pushed into a house, causing damage.
Bell died at the scene in the crash that happened nearly five years ago.
The driver is now on trial in the Hamilton District Court before Judge Arthur Tompkins on charges of dangerous driving causing death and injury.
The defendant’s name has been suppressed since the crash and that will continue through the judge-alone trial, which is set down for three days and will involve 18 Crown witnesses.
While the accused admits being the driver of the car that caused the crash and Bell’s death, he is defending the charges on the basis his driving didn’t fall below the standard of a prudent driver and didn’t create a situation that was objectively dangerous.
But Crown prosecutor Russell Boot told Judge Tompkins the defendant shouldn’t have been driving that day as he had been issued a medical suspension by a Waikato Hospital doctor in December 2020.
What evidence there is of that medical order, and whether any is required, will likely be a key matter in the trial.
Several members of Bell’s whānau were in attendance for the start of today’s trial.
The court heard the crash happened at the intersection of Whatawhata Rd and Poaka Ave, on the afternoon of April 26, 2021.
Outlining what happened, Boot said the defendant had travelled along Bremworth Ave before he turned on to Poaka Ave, heading north towards Whatawhata Rd.
At the same time, Hamilton automotive engineer Jeffrey Dawson was heading towards the city on Whatawhata Rd.
As Dawson approached the intersection with Poaka Ave he took a glance and didn’t see any cars waiting or approaching the give way line.
He then looked back to the vehicle in front of him and when he was directly opposite the intersection suddenly saw “what I consider to be a flash of red, out of my peripheral vision”.
He next felt a “huge impact and explosion” to the right-hand side of his vehicle.
“Almost in slow motion, I became aware that suddenly I was on the right side, basically leaning into the driver’s door ... and thinking, ‘oh, I’m now upside down’ and then back up the right way, then back, upside down.
“I’m not sure how many times I went over.
“I recalled with a thud landing up the right way on the wheels of the vehicle.”
Boot said Dawson’s vehicle ended up doing a 180-degree turn and landed facing the way it had been coming from.
After hitting Dawson’s car, the defendant’s car went up a kerb, through a road sign and became airborne, striking Bell.
Bell and the VW continued through the iron gates before Bell was thrown into a garden on the property. The car crashed into two parked cars.
Bell was found 7m from the footpath. An occupant of the house began giving him first aid until Hato Hone St John staff arrived but Bell died at the scene.
When questioned, the defendant told police he “must have blacked out”.
Boot said three days before the crash, the defendant went to Anglesea Clinic seeking treatment for breathing difficulties, sleep apnoea and his muscles locking up.
He had been forbidden to drive by medical staff in 2019, and on December 10, 2020, after an admission to Waikato Hospital, a doctor forbade him to drive for 12 months.
However, NZ Transport Agency’s Ari McBrearty gave evidence the defendant had signed for all of his driver licences, learner’s, restricted and full, on the basis he wasn’t suffering any medical conditions that could impact his driving.
Waikato Hospital consultant Dr Manjulo Ratnaweera treated the accused on December 10, 2020.
The man had told her he went to the hospital as he had been experiencing “an increasing frequency of seizure episodes”.
She said he first went to the hospital on December 8, before being discharged and returning the next day, when he was admitted.
“He had what we call pseudoseizures, or stress-related seizures.”
Pseudoseizures are seizures that don’t fit the normal criteria of a seizure.
Given his pseudoseizures, Ratnaweera verbally told him not to drive for 12 months.
However, while there was an entry in his discharge notes not to drive, no time period was specified.
“Usually I say 12 months after the last episode but that has not been documented,” she said.
“It just comes out like that to every patient.”
Neurologist Dr Christopher Lynch told the court he saw the defendant in Waikato Hospital in November 2018, after he’d experienced a number of “seizure-like events”.
After an assessment, he deemed the defendant had not suffered an epileptic seizure, but a “funny turn”, an event more likely because of hyperventilation, anxiety, or the opioids that were found in his system.
Lynch told the defendant not to drive for 12 months, which was written in his discharge notes.
The accused told Detective Kerry Tinworth at Waikato Hospital, soon after the crash, that he was driving to work when he suddenly “lost consciousness”.
“Like I fainted in a sense.”
He recalled that just as he was going over the speed bump on Poaka Ave, near Jasmine Ave, he blacked out, but before going through the intersection.
He remembered a bit of the impact and getting out of the car, before adding that his accelerator was “a bit touchy”.
He told Tinworth he had a condition where his body locks up, normally just his hips, and is caused by a change in temperature or stress, but said “it happens rarely these days”.
The defendant said it felt “like a faint, not a seizure” as his head felt fine, before adding that he would feel his chest muscles seize up and he can’t breathe.
Dawson told the court after getting out of his ute he looked around, questioning himself, “what happened, what hit me or what I had hit”.
A woman rushed up to him, appearing shocked, as he had what looked like blood on him.
He then looked down and saw red liquid running down his shoulder and off his fingertips and on to the ground.
However, what they thought was blood was in fact automatic transmission fluid that had been inside his ute.
“So I assured people that I was okay.”
The trial continues.
Belinda Feek is an Open Justice reporter based in Waikato. She has worked at NZME for 11 years and has been a journalist for 22.