Vic: Boy killed in alleged drink-drive crash as mum watches

AAP General News (Australia)
12-21-2009
Vic: Boy killed in alleged drink-drive crash as mum watches

By Jamie Duncan

MELBOURNE, Dec 21 AAP - A six-year-old boy was killed and four people, including his
mother, were injured when an alleged drunk driver smashed his car through a fence and
into a suburban front yard.

Police allege the man was driving with a blood alcohol level of .109, more than twice
the legal limit, when he lost control of his Holden Commodore in Crinigan Road, Morwell,
about 7pm (AEDT) on Sunday.

The boy was playing with his mother and two teenage boys in the front yard of the house
when the car crashed into them.

The boy was taken to Latrobe Regional Hospital in nearby Traralgon, where he later died.

The driver, a 25-year-old Morwell man, is in custody.

"He is at Morwell police station at the moment; he blew .109," Senior Constable Melissa
Seach told AAP.

Major collisions police will attend the scene and will interview the driver.

The dead boy's mother and the two teenagers were taken to the same hospital with minor injuries.

A passenger in the car, a man in his 20s, also sustained minor injuries.

Ambulance Victoria spokesman John Mullen said the scene was distressing for emergency workers.

"We have organised peer support for our two crews already," he told AAP.

The boy was the second person to die on Victorian roads on Sunday and the fourth road
fatality in the Christmas/New Year period in the state.

Earlier, a motorcyclist died in a head-on collision near Mildura in Victoria's far northwest.

The man had been riding on the Old Wentworth Road at Merbein, near Mildura, about 565
km northwest of Melbourne, when his bike collided with a car at about 3.30pm.

The victim, a 34-year-old Merbein man, was pronounced dead at the scene.

The car driver, a 55-year-old NSW woman, was trapped for about an hour. She was taken
to the Mildura Base Hospital with a broken leg.

Police will prepare a report for the coroner in both cases.

The deaths bring the state's Christmas road toll to four and the 2009 toll to 281,
nine fewer than at the same time last year.

(EDS: National road toll figures are for the period 0001 December 18 to 2359 January
3. Some states and territories have different periods.)

AAP jrd/ao/rs

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