A momentary "lapse in concentration" saw a grandmother killed, a mother and baby injured and a family traumatised. TOM LEE/STUFF The scene of a four car crash, on State Highway 1B at Taupiri which killed Eiko Hawthorne. The crash also caused numerous injuries to the Mitsubishi driver, a 10-month-old baby in a car seat in the rear of that vehicle, and the driver of the Navara. Eiko's daughter Michelle Staines-Hawthorne, a 40-year-old mother of two young children, was driving the Mitsubishi when the crash occurred. In a victim impact statement read in court, Michelle described how her baby son Nikko was saved by his car seat, but sustained lacerations to the head.

Source: Stuff October 10, 2019 01:30 UTC