Friends gather to remember teen

BY EMMA BAILEY AND JEFF TOLLAN

LATEST: Friends of the Timaru teenager fatally hit by a truck in the weekend have gathered to pay their respects to him.

About 20 senior pupils from Timaru Boys' High School this morning met at the Normanby passing lane where Nathan Thorn, 16, was struck and killed about 2am yesterday.

Mr Thorn had been at a party and was walking along the road when the collision happened.

The group of pupils walked from the top of the passing lane to the crash scene and left messages and flowers on a fence at the roadside.

Teen hit by truck dies

A Timaru family is in mourning after a pedestrian, 16, was killed in the early hours of yesterday.

Nathan Thorn, a Timaru Boys' High School pupil, was walking on a stretch of State Highway 1 near Normanby, when he was hit by a truck.

Emergency services were called to the accident at the Normanby passing lanes, 5km south of Timaru, about 2am.

Police said witnesses had seen a man walking in the unlit passing lanes at 1.54am, and they would like to hear from anyone else travelling on the highway at the time who may have seen him. It is understood the teenager had been at a birthday party before the incident.

State Highway 1 was closed for eight hours while police worked at the scene.

Yesterday afternoon, Nathan Thorn's family and friends paid tribute to him on his Facebook page.

"... looking over Nathan's page today after receiving such devastating news about him this morning, he had so many people who cared about him and will miss him just as much as the whole family will. Our beautiful son, may he rest in peace, we will love and miss you forever," his mother Jill wrote.

Others paid tribute to his sense of humour and cheeky grin.

Kevin O'Sullivan, rector of Timaru Boys' High School, said an assembly would be held for the senior students this morning following the "tragic" death.

"Nathan was a very good-natured boy who was well liked.

"He was a young sportsperson with potential both as cricket player and a rugby player. He was a member of the 2nd XV and also played for the 1st XV on a number of occasions this season.

"The community will always mourn the death of the young 16-year-old. We will have an assembly to talk to the senior students and support networks will be provided."

It was a weekend of carnage on New Zealand roads with a total of four people dead and nine others seriously hurt.

Another two people were run over in driveway accidents yesterday – one of them an 18-month-old toddler, who also died.

Two pedestrians are among those killed and a six-year-old girl is fighting for her life after being hit by a car while crossing an Auckland road with her grandmother.

It follows another horrific weekend last week in which two men died and 22 people were hurt in crashes.

"At this stage we haven't had a chance to see if there is any common threads or any links," national road policing Inspector Rob Morgan said. "We had an excellent Queen's Birthday weekend, so it's disappointing to see these fatalities occurring now."

A 22-month-old toddler died yesterday after being run over in a Weymouth driveway and a 20-year-old woman was injured after being pinned by a car in another driveway incident in West Harbour.

A man in his 20s died after being struck by a vehicle in Lumsden yesterday morning. He was believed to be walking home from a party to avoid drink-driving.

A resident said the man had only just moved to the area and lived close to where he was killed.

Police suspect speed and alcohol were factors in a Te Puke crash involving seven teenage boys which left one person dead and five injured.The driver lost control near the Ohineangaanga bridge, crashing through the steel barriers and plunging four metres before landing upside down.

The dead teenager was found underneath the car having been thrown free as it hit the bridge. Some of the remaining passengers had to be cut from the car. Five were taken to Tauranga Hospital while a seventh escaped unharmed.

Another person died and two others were injured in a four-car crash in West Auckland on Saturday night after an elderly driver drove the wrong way down the North-Western motorway about 8.30pm, police said.

Kanti Patel, 40, was heading to Massey with his wife and two daughters when he saw a car heading straight for him.

He tried to swerve but the two cars collided, flipping Mr Patel's vehicle upside down. "We are very lucky to survive. Our seat belts saved us," he said.

A 20-year-old man is in a serious condition in hospital after the vehicle he was driving slammed into a truck during a police pursuit in Palmerston North early yesterday.

And a six-year-old girl is in critical but stable condition in Starship children's hospital after being struck by a car in West Auckland yesterday morning.

Meanwhile, the teenage driver involved in a two-car crash last week, in which five Rotorua Girls' High School pupils were injured while getting ready for their school ball, has died.

Kristi Ruri-Gardiner, 18, died shortly after she was taken off life support on Friday night. A 17-year-old passenger remains in Waikato Hospital with critical injuries. It was the second serious accident in Rotorua within a week after a van of teenagers rolled on State Highway 5 last Saturday.

- © Fairfax NZ News