Young woman dies in crash near Queenstown

A young woman is dead and two others seriously injured in a horrific crash near Queenstown yesterday.

Two cars, a Nissan carrying three youths and a Mercedes carrying a mother and her two children, collided on Littles Rd near Arthurs Point at 4.30pm.

A young woman in the Nissan died in the crash.

St John Southern Region operations team manager Alana Reid said a 16-year-old female and a 16-year-old male were airlifted to Southland Hospital and Lakes District Hospital with serious injuries.

The mother and her two children were also taken to Lakes District Hospital for assessment.

The crash was a horrible start to the new year and the worst she had seen since she moved to Queenstown nine months ago, she said.

An Arthurs Point resident was one of the first on the scene, trying to smash the back window to remove injured passengers.

The scene was horrible and none of the passengers of the Nissan were moving when he arrived, the man said.

"I just turned up and jumped out and tried to get them out...

"First aid training says you shouldn't move them but if they're not breathing you've got to get them out."

The man, who gashed his hands and ankle trying to break the window, eventually prised the door open with the help of another passer-by who got a tyre iron from his boot.

Another woman who was at the scene told The Southland Times it was amazing the mother and her children had been relatively unscathed in the crash.

"The lady and the two kids are really lucky, their airbags saved their life," she said.

Police had not released the name or age of the dead woman last night.

- © Fairfax NZ News