Police want to speak to anyone who saw the car, which has a spoiler on the boot, being driven at speed in the Roscommon Rd/Wordsworth Rd area or who saw the crash.
Night of carnage
The crash came on a night of carnage on the roads two days before Christmas.
A 13-year-old boy was injured in another crash in Manurewa, State Highway 1 was closed after a three-car collision near Tirau in Waikato and a 10-year-old girl was left in a critical condition when hit by a car on a pedestrian crossing in Dunedin.
Witnesses to the Wordsworth Rd crash told the Herald of seeing one girl pinned under the car's wheels, bleeding and with a tyre mark across her back.
The two people in the car were restrained by bystanders until officers and emergency services arrived.
A police spokesman said the vehicle crossed the footpath, hit the girls, then crashed into a fence.
The force of the impact threw both of them into the garden of the property where the Fairmont eventually stopped.
A woman who lives on Wordsworth Rd heard the car hit the kerb outside her house, then swerve across the street and wipe out the entire fence of the property.
She ran out of her house and saw one girl lying on the grass and the other pinned between the front and rear wheels of the right-hand side of the Fairmont.
"The girl under the car had blood pouring from her face and her arm was twisted backwards ... and she had a car [tyre] mark across her back."
She said residents ran to help the injured girls.
Later, the neighbour learned a pregnant woman had been walking towards the two girls on the footpath pushing a baby in a pram before the impact.
"She threw the pram into the middle of the road to protect her baby, otherwise it would have been hit and would have died."
The driver and the passenger tried to run away, but bystanders ran after them and brought them back to the crash site.
Antainette Peehikura told how she chased the passenger, a Pacific Islander in his early 30s, who fled down nearby John Walker Drive.
"I just started running and I grabbed him with my right arm and told him he had to come back."
She said she told him, "You've got to face up to the consequences of what you've done."
He swore at Ms Peehikura, but two men helped her bring him back to the crash site. She also said the driver tried to start the car before he fled but the engine wouldn't start.
The father of one of the girls arrived at the accident scene about five minutes later.
"He looked freaked out," said the witness.
A Starship hospital spokesman said the 8-year-old was in a critical but stable condition. The 11-year-old in Middlemore Hospital was in a stable condition.
Police want to speak to anyone who saw the 1997 Ford Fairmont, which is blue and has a spoiler on the boot, being driven at speed in the Roscommon Rd/Wordsworth Rd area or who saw the crash.
Meanwhile, a 13-year-old boy was injured in the same suburb in an unrelated accident. A car is believed to have struck a power pole, causing a localised power cut.
He was in a stable condition.
Around 10.50pm, State Highway 1 was closed after a three-car pile-up at Piarere, just north of Tirau.
The road was blocked by the crash. North-bound vehicles were diverted onto State Highway 27 and cars travelling south onto State Highway 29.
Earlier, about 3pm, a 10-year-old girl was hit by a car at a pedestrian crossing in Dunedin. She was in a critical condition last night.
