Driver killed when roof of ute ripped off

JILL McKEE/Southland Times/image ID 112484

AFTERMATH: The Ford Courier utility sitting in a paddock 7km south of Invercargill.

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A 43-year-old man was killed in a crash when the roof of his utility was torn off by a crane unit attached to a truck travelling south of Invercargill yesterday.

Police last night named him as Peter Malcolm Graham, 43, contractor of Invercargill.

The crash happened on the Invercargill-Bluff section of State Highway 1 at the northern end of the Waimatua Creek bridge, about 7km south of Invercargill, at 9.27am.

The small crane was attached to a truck loaded on a transporter travelling towards the city from Bluff.

The arm of the crane swung out from the truck and collided with the cab of the Ford Courier utility, which was heading south towards Bluff.

Debris, including the roof of the utility peeled from the vehicle and its shattered fibreglass canopy, was strewn 700m along the road.

A woman who witnessed the crash described it as horrific before declining to speak further.

Senior Sergeant Dave Raynes, of Invercargill, said the driver of the utility was killed when the hooked end of the crane smashed through the driver's side of his windscreen.

The utility continued south, leaving the road and crashing through a fence and over a wide ditch before stopping 260m from the point of impact, Mr Raynes said.

A diesel tank from the deck of the utility was bounced into the cab as it hit the ditch, he said.

The road was closed during an investigation involving more than 10 officers from the Invercargill commercial vehicle inspection unit, serious crash unit, forensic mappers, CIB and a police photographer.

Traffic was diverted until 6pm.

The investigation would take several weeks and it was too early for police to say whether any charges would be laid, Mr Raynes said.

An autopsy on the crash victim was conducted yesterday afternoon and the findings would be referred to the coroner, he said.

Yesterday's crash occurred on the same stretch of road where 50-year-old Bluff woman Claire Marie Alexander died when her car caught fire after a three-car collision in January last year.

- © Fairfax NZ News