Ep4 - Houston Motors/Incinerator Burn
Sue along with her two little boys Cody and Alex, goes to pick up their vehicle from their local garage in Nelson. It's a family outing, a visit to Chipmunks Adventure Playland and a walk to Houston Motors. As she goes to pay her bill and collect her vehicle, Sue could never have anticipated that within minutes, she will be in an ambulance accompanying her 3 year old son on an emergency dash to the nearest hospital
Cody has been hit by a 4-wheel drive vehicle driven by one of the mechanics and everyone at the garage is in shock.
Health and Safety inspector Ron Burt joins police at the scene to determine what led to this tragic accident. A grandfather himself, he must cut through the emotion surrounding a serious injury to a child, and focus on collecting all the facts while the scene is still fresh.
He will be asking why it happened and whether anything may have prevented it from occurring.
Tackling the obvious question of whether speed was a factor, Ron engages the assistance of a police accident specialist who shows him significant evidence on the vehicle.
Ron's further enquiry brings something else into the equation - the poor driver visibility and blind spots of four wheel drive vehicles. In fact blind spots extend a surprising distance from any car. Children are small, they're fast and they're unpredictable. A running 3-year-old covers almost 3 metres in a second, making cars and children a devastatingly lethal combination. Ron must ask whether more could be done to keep vehicles and pedestrians apart.
All the participants in this emotionally charged story have given Special Investigators extraordinary access. We are there as the mechanic who was driving the vehicle relives for the record the moment that he must have hit Cody; and we accompany Ron as he takes a statement from Cody's mother, Sue, still bewildered at how quickly a happy family outing can turn into every mother's worst nightmare.
No one will ever know why Cody ran off. He was just a 3-year-old boy, full of beans after an exciting morning, but the final act of Cody's short life is destined to be played out at the Nelson Coroners Court.
In Auckland, Inspector Marcus Nalter investigates how a young man at a paint factory came to receive a fireball of flame in his face. The question is were health and safety procedures in place to help this young man do his job safely? As Marcus probes deeper, it emerges that the business has recently changed hands. Could this have been a factor in the accident?
