Double tragedies struck the Australian state of Victoria earlier this week. Within hours of a wind turbine blade crushing a worker near Ballarat, a truck crashed into a school playground in outer Melbourne, killing a teacher’s aide and injuring a three-year-old child.
The incident occurred at the Macedon Ranges Montessori Pre-School in Riddells Creek on Main Road about 2:20pm on Monday.
This tragedy follows another last week, when a car crashed through a school fence in inner Melbourne, killing an 11-year-old boy.
In the latest crash, a water tanker veered out of control.
Detective Senior Sergeant Christian Von Tunk, of the Major Collision Investigation Unit, said the water tanker was believed to have been travelling in a northerly direction when it veered off course.
“That truck has lost control and has travelled through a fence and into the open playground area of a preschool where a number of children and teachers were situated,” he said.
“Unfortunately we’ve had one of the staff, a 43-year-old lady, struck by that truck, and she’s deceased.”
The woman, from Sunbury, died at the scene.
A three-year-old boy received an arm injury and was taken to the Royal Children’s Hospital in a non-life threatening condition, Senior Sergeant Von Tunk said.
The trucking company have suggested a medical episode affected the 68-year-old driver.
Senior Sergeant Tunk said the truck appeared to have made contact with a bridge about 100 metres down the road.
“There’s also some signs on the left-hand side of the road that appear to have been struck as well, and we can see some tyre marks which then veer across the road and into the [pre]school).”
Praise is flooding in for teacher’s aide Eleanor Bryant, who appears to have saved a number of children from the out-of-control truck.
Victoria Police chief commissioner Shane Patton said preliminary reports showed Ms Bryant’s actions during the crash saved the lives of several children.
“I’m led to believe she acted heroically and moved a number of children out of the way of the vehicle,” he told ABC Melbourne radio.
Just hours earlier, in the west of the state, tragedy also claimed the life of a worker on a wind-farm site.
A 36-year-old installation technician has died at a wind farm construction site at Rokewood, west of Geelong, in Victoria.
Police said the man was crushed beneath a turbine blade at a property on Bells Road.
Emergency services rushed to the site at 8am on Monday.
First responders tried to revive the man but he was declared dead at the scene.
The death occurred as workers were apparently installing the blades on a turbine. Images show two turbine blades resting on metal scaffolding, while a third lies on the ground beside tipped scaffolding.
The property is part of the Golden Plains Wind Farm Project, where an energy facility is being built including wind turbines and associated electrical infrastructure.
The project’s website said it would become Australia’s largest wind farm.
The Australian Workers’ Union (AWU) claims that the death follows mounting concerns about safety on the site. AWU Victorian state secretary Ronnie Hayden alleges that significant delays on the project led to increased pressure on workers. The company also, he says, engaged non-unionised contractors for dangerous work.
“Just two weeks ago, union delegates from three different unions met with Vestas management to raise serious safety concerns, telling them it was only dumb luck that nobody had been killed on site yet.”
Cowboys glomming on to massive, government-funded renewables projects? Whoever heard of such a thing!
