“There were bodies everywhere”: Five people dead in horror pub crash
Disturbing details have emerged from a horror crash where five people have died after a BMW crashed into a beer garden at a pub in regional Victoria.
On Sunday evening in Daylesford, north of Melbourne, families were enjoying the last of the weekend at the Royal Hotel when a BMW X5 crashed into the busy venue.
The pub was filled with hundreds of patrons in the hours before the crash due to the unofficial long weekend before Tuesday’s Melbourne Cup public holiday in Victoria.
Superintendent John Fitzpatrick confirmed on Sunday night about 11pm four people had died at the scene: two men and a woman and a six-year-old boy, while a fifth person, a teenage girl, later died in hospital.
Four others were injured, while a boy is fighting for his life in hospital.
“I haven’t seen anything this drastic for a long time,” he said.
“Any time you have five people die at a particular scene, it’s horrible.”
“There are families that have got loved ones that are no longer going to be around.”
“We don’t like to see anyone lose their life but to see a child – you don’t ever want to see anything like that.”
The driver of the BMW, a 66-year-old man, was taken to hospital with non-life-threatening injuries.
"The exact circumstances surrounding the collision are yet to be determined and investigations remain ongoing," Superintendent Fitzpatrick said.
“We are waiting to speak to him… It’s a very complex scene.”
A woman who was working at the business next door to the pub witnessed the horrific moment, recalling how she and her staff saw bodies lying on the pavement.
“We’re all pretty shocked,” she said.
“It’s pretty bad, I’ve never seen anything so traumatic in my life.”
“There were bodies everywhere, it was horrifying,” she said.
“I watched the whole crash. The car went up into the sky. I thought it was just dust. It’s only now I know it was bodies.”
Infrastructure Minister Catherine King, whose electorate Ballarat includes Daylesford, said the community was “devastated” by the incident.
“Five people have lost their lives, and their families’ lives have changed forever.
“It will really have shocked a lot of people, and I think we’re really only just coming to terms with what happened today.”
“These sort of terrible accidents, the sort of level of trauma goes on for a long period of time, and people will need a lot of support and care, and the police obviously will need to undertake a significant investigation into what’s happened.”
Image credits: Nine News