Double fatality moves police

Two teenagers were airlifted to Lismore Base Hospital.

A SYDNEY man travelling behind the Queensland couple who were killed in a head-on collision on the Pacific Highway south of Woodburn yesterday was devastated there was nothing he could do to help them.

“All I could do was hold the lady’s hand and pray for her,” said the visibly shaken motorist, who asked not to be named.

“She was semi-conscious but she wasn’t in pain.”

The 61-year-old man and his 64-year-old wife from Nerang were travelling south in their blue 1990 Holden Commodore sedan at about 8am when they collided head-on with a similar blue northbound Commodore driven by a seventeen-year-old P-plate driver from Lower Clarence.

The accident occurred at Tabbimoble, in wet and slippery conditions at the notorious black-spot stretch of the Pacific Highway between Ballina and Grafton.

The Pacific Highway was closed until midday.

It is believed the teenager failed to negotiate a bend after overtaking a truck, and crossed over into the south-bound oncoming traffic.

The driver and his sixteen-year-old passenger, also from the Lower Clarence, were airlifted to Lismore Base Hospital and treated for facial, head and limb injuries. Both are in a serious but stable condition.

The boys Gunther Barwick, 16, and Travis McDonagh, 17, are both from Maclean High School.

Richmond Local Area Commander, Superintendent Bruce Lyons, attended the crash-scene within an hour of it being reported and made an emotional plea to drivers to slow down.

“This is a very sad situation. When I walk down the road there to see two lives lost; I am just lost for words,” he said.