A new mother was killed in a horrific road crash that simple safety measures could have prevented, a coroner has found.
Sarah Tonkin, from Torquay, was hit by a large steel towbar which was thrown off the road by a passing lorry before smashing her windscreen as she drove home from her aunt’s funeral in 2019.
His Hyundai Tucson SUV veered off the Geelong-Bacchus Marsh Rd at Balliang East, west of Melbourne, before rolling onto its side and crashing into a tree.
Ms Tonkin, 37, died at the scene but her eight-month-old son Austin, who was in the back seat, miraculously survived.
The baby escaped with only minor scratches and was released from the hospital 24 hours later.
The missing towbar belonged to an Isuzu truck that was being transported from a truck dealership in Corio, a suburb of Geelong, to a new owner in Sunbury, on Melbourne’s north-west outskirts.
Coroner Audrey Jamieson ruled the lorry had travelled 35km before the towbar came loose unbeknownst to the driver. 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 that the tow hitch had not been properly secured to the tow bar using the hitch pin.
Sarah Tonkin (pictured left with baby Austin and husband Gregor Jeffery) was killed when a piece of a lorry trailer crashed into her windscreen on a Victorian road in 2019.
Judge Jamieson told the inquest it was unclear whether the towbar was incorrectly fitted or 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 to the public and thefts had been reported there.
However, the judge said the risk of similar incidents in the future could be “significantly reduced” if the hitch pins were secured with a flexible tether, such as a cable chain, so that the part would remain attached to the vehicle if it fell off.
He urged VicRoads and the National Heavy Vehicle Regulator to consider the proposal.
The coroner also requested that vehicle evaluators check the tow hitch to ensure it was installed correctly and securely.
Gregor Jeffery remembered his wife Sarah Tonkin as a “bloody legend”
After leaving the road, Ms Tonkin’s Hyundai Tucson SUV rolled onto its side and crashed into a tree.
Ms Tonkin’s father, Richard, previously called the fatal incident a “freak accident”.
“We had to accept that this happened, Sarah was in the wrong place at the wrong time by about a nanosecond and otherwise, it wouldn’t have happened anyway,” he said.
Mr Tonkin recalled the last moments he spent with his daughter at his sister-in-law’s funeral, where he waited for her to use the bathroom and change his son.
“We kissed goodbye and she said, ‘Don’t wait, go to the funeral,’ so I walked away,” he said.
“You can ask all these questions about what if and why and all that. If I hadn’t asked the guy and gone straight to the bathroom, those vital seconds would have passed and it wouldn’t have happened.”
Gregor Jeffery, Ms Tonkin’s husband of five years, recalled his wife as a “bloody legend” as she came 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.
A coroner believes a simple safety measure to prevent the truck part from breaking off could have prevented the tragedy.
“I’ve lost my best friend. We were good friends even before we started dating and we’ve been best friends ever since,” Jeffery told the Herald Sun at the time of the tragedy.
‘I used to say to her ‘you’re a fucking legend, Tonks’ – her nickname was Tonks – and we were a good team doing different things… She’s a legend and I miss her terribly.’
