Road wrecked

By Kath Gannaway
HEALESVILLE’S busy main street descended into chaos last Thursday when a car driven by an elderly man went out of control.
The incident, which happened about 3.45pm, left four people injured and a trail of wrecked cars.
Stunned pedestrians and motorists looked on helplessly as a white station wagon, an 84-year-old Yarra Glen man behind the wheel, hit four cars and knocked down a pedestrian before coming to a stop when it crashed into a stationary semi-trailer.
The driver was flown to Melbourne in a serious condition.
An elderly woman passenger in the car was also injured and taken by road ambulance to hospital.
Senior Constable Don Trice, from Warburton police station, said officers were investigating the circumstances behind the incident, which started when the man backed into a car on the highway opposite Healesville Walk car park.
He said the vehicle then accelerated heavily, sideswiping another car before hitting a third car outside the shire offices and knocking down a passenger from that car.
Still accelerating, it went through a red light at the Green Street intersection and ran into the back of a green Mercedes, driven by an elderly Healesville woman, pushing it onto the footpath, before veering across the highway into the side of the truck.
“If there is any good part to this, that is it,” Sen Const Trice told the Mail.
The potential for even greater injury and possible loss of life was evident at a time of day when, as one on-looker put it, “the street was groaning with children”.
Sen Const Trice said the car had showed no sign of braking and was heading for the other footpath.
“If that B-double truck had not been there, the car, which was still travelling at speed, would have kept going,” he said.
Doctors and nurses from nearby Yarra Valley and Healesville Medical Services clinics rushed to assist the injured at both crash scenes.
Dr Michael Hewson and nurse Ann Mower worked with paramedics on the woman who was travelling with colleagues from Plenty Valley Community Health Service. She was flown to Melbourne with serious but non-life-threatening injuries. Dr David Rogers and nurse Leonie Redshaw moved down to assist help the elderly couple and Healesville woman.
The Healesville driver was taken to the Royal Melbourne Hospital and her elderly husband, who was not in the car when it was hit, was taken to Maroondah Hospital believed to be suffering from shock.
In a scene resembling a worst-case insurance advertisement, ambulance crews, police and SES and CFA volunteers attended to the injured and worked for more than two hours to clear the highway.
While investigations are continuing into the reasons behind the crash, it has raised the thorny issue of who is responsible for ensuring elderly drivers are not a danger on the roads.
One health care professional who contacted the Mail said it was not at all uncommon for elderly drivers to continue driving despite concerns raised by family or friends.
While wishing to remain anonymous because of her professional role in the community, she said she was concerned that some GPs placed more emphasis on their patient’s loss of independence than on their own safety, or the danger they might pose to the community.