Crash Deaths Spark Inquiry

Newcastle Herald

Wednesday September 15, 2004

By FRANCES THOMPSON

THE NSW Ambulance Service will hold an official debriefing into the August 28 road accident near Aberdeen in which two people were killed, including a boy aged five.

Muswellbrook ambulance station manager John Rispen said senior staff from Newcastle would attend the session, which was designed to assess its response to major incidents, such as the one in which Samuel Thompson, 5, of Muswellbrook, and Kel Wright, 16, of Aberdeen, died.

Police investigations into four accidents are continuing: one near Branxton, in which a Scone jockey was killed when a metal bar bounced off the road; another near Singleton when a car and cattle truck collided; the August 28 Aberdeen crash; and another on the weekend on the Dartbrook Road near Aberdeen in which two men died.

Mr Rispen said that in October 2003 a family of four was killed on Halcombe Hill, between Scone and Aberdeen, which was the first of a series of serious accidents in the Upper Hunter.

Eleven people were killed on the New England Highway between Singleton and Tamworth in 2003. Another four people were killed between January and September 2004.

Mr Rispen reminded people that the road was an alternative route to Queensland and carried a large volume of traffic.

© 2004 Newcastle Herald

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