A 23-year-old man from North Canterbury is in a critical
condition after being thrown from his vehicle when it crashed
into a pole.
The accident happened in the town of Harwarden, near Lake
Sumner Forest Park just after midnight.
The car ended up about 40 metres down the road after the
crash.
In another crash today near Nelson, three men escaped serious
injury when their vehicle flew over a barrier, rolled down a
bank and landed in the sea, about 1.30am.
The two Nelson men and a man from Tauranga escaped with minor
to moderate injuries and were discharged from hospital this
morning.
Police said charges were likely.
Three other men were also lucky to escape serious harm after
their vehicle rolled down a bank in the early hours of the
morning near Gisborne.
The men from Hamilton were taken to Gisborne Hospital in
other vehicles they had been travelling in convoy with.
The 19 and 20-year-olds were treated in the hospital's
Accident and Emergency department and discharged.
A witness said it appeared the vehicle rolled several times
before coming to rest on its wheels.
The official holiday road toll tonight remains at three, with
two men and an elderly woman killed on the nation's roads.
A toddler and a teenager have also lost their lives in
vehicle accidents over the Christmas break.
On Boxing Day a 58-year-old Taumarunui man was killed in a
single-vehicle crash near Taumarunui, shortly after 1pm.
The accident happened five kilometres north of the town on
State Highway 4. No one else was in the vehicle at the time.
Shane Curtis Tosh, 24, was also killed on Boxing Day in a
serious crash in Southland.
The accident happened 200 metres east of the Lorneville-Dacre
highway, north of Invercargill, about 6.30am.
Mr Tosh was found dead at the scene. He was the sole occupant
of a Honda saloon.
And Chinese national Rongmei Wang died at the scene of a
two-car crash in Hamilton on Christmas Day.
The 71-year-old woman was a rear passenger in a car that
collided with a ute about 12.35pm.
Four of her family members were taken to Waikato Hospital.
Police later tracked down a 26-year-old suspended driver who
allegedly fled the crash scene.
Meanwhile, three-year-old toddler Te Haeata Pitiroi was
killed at Hatepe near Taupo about 9pm on Christmas Eve when
he was run over in a shared driveway.
And 16-year-old Rowan Cai Parker was killed about 6.30pm on
Wednesday when he lost control of a quad bike in the
Chaslands area of South Otago and drove over a cliff -
falling 150 meters on to rocks.
Neither Rowan's nor the toddler's deaths count towards the
official holiday road toll as the crashes did not happen on
public roads.
The official holiday road toll began at 4pm on Christmas Eve
and will finish at 6am on January 3.
Last year 19 people died and 381 were injured in crashes
during the official Christmas holiday period.
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