A new mum was killed in a horrific freak road accident that a safety simple measure could have prevented, a coroner has found.
Sarah Tonkin, from Torquay, was hit by a large steel tow hitch that was flicked off the road by a passing truck before smashing through her windscreen as she drove home from her aunt’s funeral in 2019.
Her Hyundai Tucson SUV veered off the Geelong-Bacchus Marsh Rd at Balliang East, west of Melbourne, before rolling on its side and slamming into a tree.
Ms Tonkin, 37, died at the scene but her eight-month-old son Austin in the back seat miraculously survived.
The baby escaped with only minor scratches and was discharged from hospital 24 hours later.
The stray tow hitch belonged to an Isuzu truck being driven from a truck dealership in the Geelong suburb of Corio to a new owner in Sunbury, on Melbourne’s north-west outskirts.
Coroner Judge Audrey Jamieson found that the truck travelled 35km before the tow hitch dislodged without the driver’s knowledge, the Herald Sun reported.
Victoria Police’s Heavy Vehicle Unit Criminal Investigation Unit examined the truck’s safety inspection records as part of its investigation and found the tow hitch had not been properly secured in the towbar by the hitch pin.
Sarah Tonkin (pictured left with baby Austin and husband Gregor Jeffery) was killed when a truck tow part crashed through her windscreen on a Victorian road in 2019
Judge Jamieson told the inquest that it was unclear whether the tow hitch was installed incorrectly or whether it was removed by an unknown person while the truck was parked at Winter & Taylor between November 28 and December 13, 2019.
The yard where the truck was parked was accessible by members of the public and thefts had been been reported there.
However, the judge said the risk of similar incidents in the future could be ‘significantly reduced’ if hitch pins were attached by a flexible tether such as a chain of cable so the part would remain attached to the vehicle if it fell off.
She urged VicRoads and the National Heavy Vehicle Regulator to consider the proposal.
The coroner also called for tow hitch assembly to be checked by vehicle assessors to ensure they have been installed correctly and safely.
Gregor Jeffery remembered his wife Sarah Tonkin as a ‘bloody legend’
After coming off the road Ms Tonkin’s Hyundai Tucson SUV rolled on its side and hit a tree
Ms Tonkin’s father Richard previously called the fatal incident a ‘freak accident’.
‘We’ve had to accept that it’s happened, Sarah was in the wrong place at the wrong time by about a nanosecond and otherwise, either way it wouldn’t have happened,’ he said.
Mr Tonkin recalled the last moments he spent with his daughter at his sister-in-law’s funeral, where he waited with her to use a bathroom and change her son.
‘We kissed goodbye and she said, ”Don’t wait, you go to the burial”, so I walked off,’ he said.
‘The what-ifs and why, and all that stuff, you can ask all those questions. If she hadn’t of asked the chap, and if she had gone straight to the bathroom, those vital seconds would have passed and it wouldn’t have happened.’
A coroner believes a simple safety measure to stop the truck part from dislodging might have prevented the tragedy
Ms Tonkin’s husband of five years Gregor Jeffery remembered his wife as a ‘bloody legend’ while coming to terms with the prospect of raising their son alone.
The couple spent many years trying to conceive before Austin was born in April 2019.
‘I’ve lost my best friend. We were good friends before we even got together, and have been best friends ever since,’ Mr Jeffery told Herald Sun at the time of the tragedy.
‘I used to say to her “you’re a bloody legend Tonks” — her nickname was Tonks — and we were a good team doing different things… She’s a legend and I miss her to bits.’
