Killer bend claims young father’s life

By Cam Scott
A ‘FREAK’ incident on a dangerous stretch of BelgraveHallam Road at Narre Warren East claimed the life of a Noble Park man last Sunday afternoon.
The man aged in his 20s died at the scene after his southbound car collided with a trailer being towed north that had come loose, hitting his car and forcing it off the road into trees.
The driver of the car died at the scene. The driver of a second southbound vehicle suffered minor injuries. Local residents say a third car was also involved.
Despite the freakish nature of last Sunday’s incident, the stretch of road where the tragedy occurred has been pointed out by local residents as an historically troubled stretch of road.
Tracey and Greg Koski were first on the scene after they heard a loud bang and quickly tried to help the occupants of the vehicles.
Mrs Koski held the dead man’s hand and continued to talk to him until help arrived, so that he didn’t die alone.
“I just held his hand and kept talking to him making him aware he wasn’t alone,” she said.
“I was aware he was a father (the car had a child seat) and being a mother of two I’d like to think someone would do that for me. It’s not a nice thing, but you do what you’ve got to do at the time.”
Today (Thursday) Mr and Mrs Koski will attend trauma counselling to come to grips with what they saw on Sunday.
“The hard part for me is dealing with the crash scene every time I drive out my driveway.
“We’re having trouble just dealing with the fact that someone had died and we’re having to envisage his face continually in our minds,” Mrs Koski said.
“It’s something we have to get on with to try and remove those images from our minds.”
Mrs Koski said that she wouldn’t like to go through Sunday’s experience again, but was adamant she would if the situation arose
“We wouldn’t like to see it again but we’ve both said if it happened we’d do it again. When you hear that noise you know its bad. You go and help where you can.”
Mrs Koski and neighbour Caron Miller have lived in the area for five years and say that although Sunday’s incident was freakish, it’s just a matter of time until another incident occurs on the stretch of road between Mount Flat Road and Wellington Road.
“It’s a shocking bend in the road, an absolutely horrible bend,” Mrs Koski said.
“It’s a little bit too fast for a start at 100kph there,” Mrs Miller said. “It’s just a timebomb waiting to go off until some solution is figured out.”