Chaos as rolling transporter scatters cars

BARRY WHITNALL/Shuttersport

WRECKS GALORE: Battered vehicles were strewn across a paddock and in trees after being thrown from a rolling transporter this morning.

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A car transporter rolled on the Shenandoah highway just south of Maruia Falls this morning, injuring the driver and scattering cars across nearby land, police southern communications said.

The Nelson-Marlborough Rescue Helicopter flew the driver to Nelson Hospital with multiple injuries, including suspected neck damage, after the accident about 6.30am which blocked State Highway 65 for a couple of hours.

Rescue helicopter pilot Tim Douglas-Clifford said the rescue crew, including a St John intensive-care paramedic, attended the driver, who was cut free from the truck by fire crew.

"It was a car transporter, so there were cars scattered across the road, in the paddock and through the trees.

"It looked like about a five- or six-car pile up when we arrived."

He said the truck had been travelling north towards Nelson.

The road was reopened as one lane by 8.30am, police said.

The truck belonged to Christchurch firm, the Car Distribution Group.

Company representatives were on their way to the scene this morning and did not have further information on how the accident occurred.

- © Fairfax NZ News