Pictured: Mother, 37, killed in freak accident when a tow bar on the road smashed into her windscreen – as her baby boy miraculously survives with only minor scratches
- Mother dead and her baby injured after horror crash on dangerous Victoria road
- A 10kg tow bar flipped up in the road and smashed into the woman’s windscreen
- It caused the car to veer into a tree, leaving a child’s buggy scattered in the road
A mother who was killed in a horrific car crash has been named as Sarah Tonkin from Victoria’s Surf Coast
A mother who was killed in a horrific car crash has been named as Sarah Tonkin from Victoria’s Surf Coast.
The 37-year-old was killed instantly on Friday when a tow bar bounced up off the road and smashed into her windscreen on the Geelong-Bacchus Marsh Road outside Melbourne.
He car veered off the road and into a tree before flipping onto its side.
Ms Tonkin’s 10-month-old baby Austin suffered only minor scratches and was taken to the Royal Children’s Hospital.
Ms Tonkin’s father Richard remembered her as a ‘beautiful’ girl.
He told The Age: ‘She was just one of those people who walked into a room and lit it up.
‘If she happened to be on the road a minute before or a minute after, it wouldn’t have happened.’
A child’s stroller was seen among the debris after the crash.
Her Hyundai sedan hit the tree just after 2.15pm on Friday.
Police believe a green and white B-double travelling on the other side of the road could have hit the 10kg tow bar, causing it to flick into the woman’s windscreen.
Volunteers from the County Fire Authority help to inspect the scene of the crash (pictured), which happened on a notoriously dangerous stretch of road
The car veered dramatically off the road and hit a tree (pictured) after tow boar flipped up in the road and smashed through the windscreen
A child’s buggy can be seen strewn across the grass (pictured) after the young mother lost control of the SUV
Detective Acting Sergeant Philip Frith, from the Major Collision Investigation Unit, said police believe the tow bar fell from a truck in the minutes before it was hit by the B-double.
‘You’ve got a young mum weeks out from Christmas with her young child in the car, who has lost her life through no fault of her own,’ he told the Herald Sun.
‘It’s very tragic.’
He explained the tongue of the tow bar had come loose and was lying in the middle of the road, before it bounced up and hit the woman’s windscreen.
‘It’s quite a substantial piece of metal, in excess of 10 kilograms, so we don’t think it was lying there long,’ he explained.
‘Had a car hit it, it would have done significant damage, so we think somebody would’ve stopped to pick it up.
‘It’s unfortunate that it’s a truck that’s hit it. It’s been picked up under the tyre and it looks as though that’s caused it to fly up into the air.’
Police are looking to speak to the truck driver about what happened, but insisted that at the moment there is ‘no offence to speak of’.
It was the first of two fatal crashes on Friday in the area, just hours after Victoria Police warned drivers about Christmas road safety.
In the second incident a man in his 60s also hit a tree on the Forrest-Apollo Bay Road at Tanybryn.
The man died on the way to hospital.
The 37-year-old mother died in the wreckage (pictured) but her 10-month-old baby is in a stable condition in the Royal Children’s Hospital