Haunted by unnecessary driveway deaths

Mikaela Froggatt-Smith, with her parents Johnene and Lindsay, after the accident. File photo / NZ Herald

Enough is enough: a top cop says he is still haunted in his retirement by the driveway deaths he investigated, and it's time to stop ignoring the extent of the problem.

Sandy Beckett, former sergeant of Auckland's serious crash unit, attended dozens of driveway accidents, including three in one week in 1998.

On the Monday of that week, a 6-year-old in Blockhouse Bay was hit and killed by her visiting cousin.

On the Wednesday, Mikaela Froggatt-Smith, 2, was run over in her Mt Wellington driveway by an elderly man visiting a neighbour.

And on the Friday, a toddler was killed at home in Western Springs by a Sky TV worker reversing.

Beckett said there was a dire lack of information about such cases because they were treated as off-road incidents by police.

"We have to get a national database," he said. "These accidents need to be included in the stats so we can start doing something about them."

Amid all the deaths, Mikaela's story had stuck with him because of her remarkable survival. When Beckett got to the scene Mikaela had already been rushed to hospital, leaving a puddle of blood and bits of clothing on the driveway. He calculated 450kg of the car's weight had been resting on the girl's abdomen.

Beckett went to Starship hospital where Mikaela was in an induced coma.

Mikaela's father Lindsay Froggatt was stroking her hair. "I looked at her dad and said, 'You're the luckiest thing alive.' He burst into tears and we hugged."

Beckett now lives in Cairns, Queensland, and works privately as a crash investigator. He has a framed photograph on his wall of Mikaela in hospital, which was presented to him by her grateful father.

Ann Weaver, director of Safe Kids which is spearheading a campaign on driveway run-overs, agreed there was a need for a national database. At present, figures are cobbled together from the Ministry of Health, ACC, the coroner, Child and Youth Mortality Review Committee and police.

Beckett said: "If we start capturing those stats and doing a breakdown analysis from a Government level, we can start addressing why they're occurring."