Miracle escape as 3yo hit by stunt car
Published: January 8, 2006
A SOUTH Australian stunt team’s performance at Canberra’s annual Summernats spectacular has ended in near tragedy, with a crash trapping Connor Polzin, 3, under a powerful utility.
The boy was enjoying the annual spectacular with his family when he was struck by one of the stunt cars.
Spectators had to lift the 1000 horsepower V8 ute off Connor after it ploughed through a fence into the crowd.
Connor’s mother, Sherie Deller, said the car lost control on the gravel track and hit the fence, where her family was watching the stunt event.
After the impact, only Connor’s head was visible. His body was under the bumper.
“We saw he had blood pouring out of his head,” Ms Deller said. “Then heaps of people rushed in and lifted the car up to get him out.”
Connor escaped Saturday night’s accident with only minor cuts to his head and body. He was treated at Canberra hospital and released yesterday morning.
His father, David Polzin, 27, said two things had saved his son’s life - a fence pole that jammed behind the front wheel of the ute and Ms Deller’s brother Tony, who grabbed Connor as the car hit. “If he hadn’t done that, there would have been a lot more trouble,” he said.
Tony yesterday was undergoing surgery for a severed tendon in his hand, caused by the impact. Ms Deller’s father, Wayne, also received lacerations on his left shin and her aunt, Desmerelda Corbett, injured her leg.
Mr Polzin, of the Canberra suburb of Theodore, blamed the ute driver, a member of South Australia’s C.A.P.A. performance team, for the accident. The driver was completing “drift” stunts, using the loose gravel to fishtail and slide the car, when he lost control and ploughed into the fence.
“That driver . . . should have backed off and kept it away from the fence.”
The driver was not allowed to speak to the media yesterday because an ACT Police investigation was continuing.
Summernats organiser Chic Henry said he would never have drift vehicles on the dirt track again. “(The drivers) are very, very capable people but it was on a soft track and sometimes vehicles slide more than necessary,” he said.
Connor said he did not want to go to Summernats again. His parents, however, said they would be happy to return - if security fencing was improved.
Mr Polzin said the arena, filled with 40,000 fans when the crash occurred, needed more than a 1m high mesh fence for stunt driving events.
Police last night were treating the incident as “a minor collision” but investigations were ongoing.
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