“All I keep thinking about is how my brother and daughter could be dead.”
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Strong, emotional words from Alfredton man Aaron Rutherford.
“It all happened so fast, I got to the intersection, looked up and there was no car there, so I began my turn, and about two seconds later I was hit,” he said, fighting back tears.
Mr Rutherford was driving home from his uncle’s house on September 25 when his car was struck as he began to turn right at the Bells and Cherry Flat Road intersection at Smythes Creek.
The intersection’s safety has been strongly debated.
Bells Road has a speed limit of 100 kilometres an hour. Residents have said that, combined with a hill leading up to the intersection, drivers often have very limited time to react when turning onto Cherry Flat Road.
In the car with Mr Rutherford was his 13-year-old brother Connor, his 13-year-old daughter Peta and their shar-pei cross, Tank.
He described the crash experience as a blur.
“I could hear everything that was happening – the sounds of the crash, of the metal crunching – but none of us made a sound,” he recalled.
“I blacked out for a second afterwards, and when I looked around I saw my little brother was moving, and my daughter needed help because her feet were trapped.
“I looked at Connor’s face and saw the blood running, then I just see this massive gash in his head – I could see his skull.”
After helping free his daughter's feet from behind the passenger seat, he broke through the driver’s side window, so he and Peta could get out of the car.
“I went around to look, and the door on Connor’s side had been pushed in by about a foot, so I couldn’t just open it.
“I grabbed a pipe out of a nearby ute and tried to wedge it open, but after it wouldn’t fit.
“I just had to take the door off.”
Connor, who turns 14 on Thursday, was in the passenger seat, suffered a broken femur, broken hip, bruised sternum and a deep gash in his forehead.
“I remember looking to my left as we turned and it was right there,” Connor said.
“All I remember is shouting ‘help, help, please help’ and calling out Aaron’s name.”
Connor was airlifted to Melbourne’s Royal Children’s Hospital.
“Doctors told us Connor is the one out of 100 to survive a crash like that, and I can’t express how lucky I am for that,” Mr Rutherford said.
Cherry Flat Road is controlled by the City of Ballarat, while Bells Road is a Golden Plains Shire road.
“Council needs to do something, they need to put up signs or drop the speed limit – it’s too dangerous.
“We’re lucky Connor is alive.”
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