The death of a grey nomad in the Northern Territory last week has been described by police as a ‘freak accident’.
As has been widely reported, a 65-year-old woman was killed instantly when a small boulder smashed through the windscreen of the four-wheel-drive that she was a passenger in. The woman’s husband, who had been driving, was taken to Royal Darwin Hospital in a state of shock.
While events such as this are clearly very unnerving for all travellers who drive long distances on gravel and dirt roads, it is being seen as a very, very unusual set of circumstances.
Crash investigator Sergeant Trevor Seears told the NT News that a Darwin-bound vehicle drove over the mango-sized boulder moments before the Cairns-based couple passed them.
“It tumbled underneath the vehicle and flicked back up off the road and got the outbound vehicle unluckily enough on the passenger-side and just went straight through the windscreen,” he said. “It’s just damned unlucky,”
The accident happened on the Arnhem Highway, 30km east of the Adelaide River Crossing and 200 metres from a quarry entrance. There was no evidence that.the boulder – which was 15cm wide and 12 cm thick – came from the quarry.
The Cairns couple were on their way to Wildman River in Kakadu, about 160km southeast of Darwin, where they were due to meet friends for a fishing getaway.
