Injured teen drags herself and baby sister up cliff after crash

By ROSALEEN MacBRAYNE


While several sheltie show dogs fled from a crashed van near Te Puke, 13-year-old Danielle Frost grabbed her baby sister and dragged herself up a steep cliff in the dark to get help for her injured parents.

With a torch clenched under one broken arm, holding the 13-month-old child with the other and blood pouring down her face from deep cuts, the Tauranga teenager eventually managed to flag down a passing car on State Highway 33.

The accident happened about 2am on Monday when Barry and Cheryl Frost and their two daughters were returning home to Tauranga from specialist shetland sheepdog shows in Wellington at the weekend.

Their van left the road at the top of Three Mile Hill, between Rotorua and Paengaroa, rolling down a 50m bank. Mrs Frost was trapped in the vehicle for more than two hours and was in a stable condition yesterday in intensive care at Tauranga Hospital where Danielle was recovering from surgery. Mr Frost, after an operation late on Monday, was discharged and went looking for the dogs. Baby Marissa, who suffered only minor injuries, was being cared for by family friends in Auckland.

Tauranga SPCA, Western Bay of Plenty District Council animal services staff, volunteer firemen and other dog owners spent all day on Monday searching for the 13 timid miniature collies.

By late yesterday afternoon all but three adult pedigree dogs had been recovered. One frightened puppy was found sitting in a hole on the side of the cliff.

An Auckland sheltie breeder and close friend of the Frosts, Lorelle Goodman, was one of a dozen people who helped in the search on her way home from the Wellington show.

She said most of the Frosts' dogs, which were Canadian and New Zealand champions, had been found safe and well not far from the crash site.

Mrs Goodman said there was a creek nearby and the three still at large were hopefully not far away.

"As long as they have water, they will survive."