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Warning: Graphic details It was a spectacle that stunned motorists travelling north on the Waikato Expressway - an SUV “screaming past” between the left lane and the wire barrier, an eventual crash and the driver’s inexplicable decision to run into southbound lanes, where he was struck by another vehicle and died at the scene despite the desperate CPR efforts of passersby and first responders. But the dramatic scenes near Hampton Downs nine days ago weren’t a surprise to everyone. Truckies see appalling driving every day, and are often first on the scene to clean up the mess.

One tells Cherie Howie “It never gets better helping emergency services pull bodies out of wreckage.” It’s the warmth you remember in the weeks, months and even years after pulling a body out of a crashed vehicle, a veteran truckie says. He’s been at the wheel of truck and trailer units for more than 40 years, and says he sees crashes on our roads every couple of days, including a dozen really bad ones that took lives.



Sometimes he’s driving past an earlier crash, sometimes he arrives moments after, and sometimes the horror unfolds right in front of his windscreen, leaving him to give immediate first aid and comfort, or - sometimes - help first responders remove the dead. “The thing you realise when you pull a body out of a car crash is that it’s still warm. It’s quite horrible because the first time you do it, it’s still limp and warm.

“Yeah, they’ve died. But they’re war.

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