'Incredibly difficult time': Rural community shattered after four teens ...
‘Incredibly difficult time’: Rural community shattered after four teens die in Bochara car crash
A tight-knit community in western Victoria is reeling after four teenagers were killed in a car crash on Saturday morning.
Police believe the car they were travelling in veered off Wannon-Nigretta Falls Road at Bochara, 11 kilometres north-west of Hamilton.
It smashed into a tree, killing two male and two female occupants. The sole survivor of the crash, a teenage girl, was flown by air ambulance to The Alfred hospital where she was still in a critical condition on Sunday morning.
The two females and two males who died in the crash are yet to be formally identified and their ages have not been confirmed by Victoria Police.
The crash scene was discovered after a passer-by came across the wrecked car at 9.30am Saturday.
Southern Grampians Shire mayor David Robertson told Today Weekend the tight-knit community was in shock after the teens’ deaths.
Police at the scene of a car crash where four teenagers were killed in Bochara.Credit: Nicole Cleary
“It happened somewhere between 4am and 9am, where it was discovered by a motorist along the road,” he said.
Robertson added: “There’s very little traffic on that road. There’s three houses within about 9 km. So they could have been there for quite a while and I think that is what the police are trying to put together now, the details of the accident.”
He said the road where the crash occurred was “reasonably” straight and saw little traffic. The speed limit on Wannon-Nigretta Falls Road is 100 km/h.
The crash is being investigated by detectives from the Major Collision Unit and the area remains cordoned off.
The crash occurred on a straight stretch of road in Bochara.Credit: Peter Corbett/Nine News
Premier Daniel Andrews said he extended his deepest sympathies to the families and friends of the crash victims.
“This will be an incredibly difficult time for those families, friends, people who loved those who have been caught up in this, and we send our best wishes during what will be an incredibly challenging time ... people should be assured there’ll be a full investigation ... so that we could try and understand what’s happened,” he said.
Andrews said agencies including the coroner, TAC and Victoria Police would investigate what had happened to establish any broader trends.
The premier, stressing he was not passing comment on the causes of the crash in the state’s west, urged all Victorians to take extra care on the road.
“Please drive to the conditions. Take a little bit longer to get there. Getting there is the really important thing. We don’t want families to be going through what those families in the west of the state are going through.”
The crash outside Hamilton follows a horror smash at Strathmerton in April where five people died. That crash was the second fatal accident at the same spot within three months, prompting the deputy state coroner, Jacqui Hawkins, on Thursday to announce said she would investigate the history of the intersection over the past 10 years.
with AAP
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