No closure for veteran after crash
Ten weeks after crashing into escaped stock on State Highway 94, Russell Jenkins said he had heard nothing from the police or the farmer responsible, with no offer of financial compensation or even an apology.
He said he sat at his Riversdale home for 12 days from April 17 through Easter weekend and Anzac Day waiting for some contact from police, an insurance company or a farmer and got nothing.
Living alone and with no car, he then caught a bus to Dunedin for his work.
"Nobody came and knocked on my door," he said.
"And the fact that I am a veteran, on that day, and no-one came and talked to me. It's not like I wasn't available, because I was there. My car was parked on my front lawn."
Mr Jenkins was the second person to plough into the cows that night, after 18-year-old Grace Steele, driving the opposite way, first hit the beasts.
Grace was told last week by her insurance company that the owner of the stock could not be proven to be liable for the accident, as no evidence of negligence was shown. She had suffered mental stress and concussion from the incident.
Despite this, the farmer's insurance company paid the $1050 excess of damage on her car despite the farmer being found not liable.
Mr Jenkins has received no compensation.
His Hyundai Grandeur V6 was written off and he has since bought a bigger, higher, safer $20,000 four-wheel drive vehicle.
On the night of the crash, he hit four cows at open road speed, killing one on impact, he said.
One animal rolled up on to his windscreen, puncturing the glass right in front of his face.
"I should not have been alive any more," he said.
He said he would love some money and a meaningful apology from those responsible for the crash.
"Cars are worth nothing. Lives are worth something and an apology is probably up there as well," he said.
The ex-veteran joined the army at 16, serving in the East Timor, Afghanistan and Kyrgyzstan conflicts.
He walked to the smaller Riversdale service on Anzac Day.
After retiring from the army about 2009, he spent time as a volunteer fire fighter and ambulance officer and now works as a historic stonemason.
He did not see how the farmer could be found not liable for the accident.
"It has to be a gate left open or something, otherwise the stock would not be on a provincial highway," he said.
"I've attended accidents like that as a professional on the other side and if your stock's on the road on a provincial highway; you don't get away with it."
He said despite Riversdale fire and vet services attending the accident, and a Lumsden policeman, his rural community had gone quiet in its wake.
"Farmers were all quite happy for us to come and help them to drag out flooded animals and clear fences and do all that," he said.
"We've had that in the last five years, a couple of times.
"How about you hold the other end of the conversation and ... be responsible?"
ella.scott-fleming@alliedpress.co.nz
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