GoFundMe campaign for Bakers Creek crash victims

A woman has described how she thought she and her husband would die in the devastating crash that left them suspended upside down inside the wreckage.

A former Caboolture woman has described how she thought she and her husband would die in a devastating crash near Mackay that destroyed their car and left them suspended upside down inside the wreckage.

Deborah Wilkinson described hearing “hubby screaming (help) so much, and then he stopped and I thought I’d lost him”.

She and her partner Wayne Wilkinson had been on their way to start a new life in Cairns, from Brisbane, but now must remain at Mackay Base Hospital until he can walk again after crashing off the side of a bridge at Bakers Creek.

Wayne and Deborah Wilkinson were injured in a serious crash at Bakers Creek. Picture: Supplied

She told this publication she “has nightmares” about the harrowing ordeal.

“I was trying to undo the seatbelt, I was wriggling around, I was trying to kick the window,” she said.

“(I) just couldn’t get out (or) undo the seatbelt.

“I thought we were gone. I thought if no one comes and saves us, we’re gone.”

It was about 3am on September 23 and she had been sleeping while Wayne was driving when, “the next thing I thought a semi had hit the car”.

Their ute had ploughed through the guardrail at Bakers Creek bridge.

“Next thing I heard another big crash … then I was out to it,” Mrs Wilkinson said, adding she believed she’d blacked out.

Mrs Wilkinson recalls the harrowing crash that has left her with nightmares. Picture: Zoe Devenport

This was the moment the vehicle had gone over the edge, flipping upside down and landing on its roof on the bank some metres below trapping the couple, both aged 54, inside.

Mrs Wilkinson said they were suspended from their seatbelts, which had locked – it would be at least an hour before they were cut free from the crumpled ute.

When she came to again her phone was ringing – it was her son wondering where they had gone.

“I told him we’d gone off the bridge, he knew exactly (where),” she said.

“So if it wasn’t for him ringing me, we might not have (been) found.”

Mrs Wilkinson said her husband later told her “a kangaroo was coming for the car”.

Police inspect where a vehicle and trailer has come off a bridge and rolled down a river bank south of Mackay. Photo: Janessa Ekert.

“At that stage he was going through a light patch (of fog) where you could see the road … and all of a sudden it went into a cloud and then the car swerved so he couldn’t control it,” she said.

“He didn’t know the bridge was there until he hit it.

“He yelled at me, because I was asleep, ‘Deb, Deb, Deb, wake up, wake up’, but the bang, that’s what woke me up.”

Their injuries were multiple. Mrs Wilkinson has broken ribs, bruised lungs and cuts, while her husband, 54, suffered a shattered skull, brain bleed, separated cheek bone, broken eye socket, shattered shoulder blade, and broken ribs.

“I don’t know how hubby got out, to be honest,” Mrs Wilkinson said.

“They got him out through my door because he was upside down on the roof … the police were the ones who got him out, and got me out and my son helped.”

Their dog Lilly was also in the vehicle at the time of the crash. Picture: Supplied

Also travelling with the couple was their staffy Lilly, who Mrs Wilkinson said was “pretty injured” and anxious.

“My husband’s injuries are pretty bad, but they’re fixable … I’ve got busted ribs, so I got out of it pretty lightly but not my husband,” Mrs Wilkinson said.

The majority of their possessions were destroyed and Mrs Wilkinson said she did not know where her mother-in-law’s urn was.

“We had a lot of stuff that we didn’t want to put into the removal truck,” she said.

Mrs Wilkinson said they were still processing what happened.

“How we got out of there alive … I don’t know,” she said.

A vehicle and trailer ploughed through the guardrail and landed on the riverbank below south of Mackay. Photo: Janessa Ekert

“All these things go through my head. I’m not sleeping. I had nightmares about the crash.

“We talk about it all the time … we sort of think … if we didn’t do this or if we left later, (but) we just can’t think that.”

In a fundraising page set up to help the pair, which has already raised more than $4700 in days, their youngest daughter said her father had “swerved to miss a kangaroo before coming onto the bridge”.

“Our dad was trapped in the vehicle as the driver’s side was completely squished, the seatbelts had locked,” a GoFundMe campaign read.

“Mum was trying desperately to kick the glass window, the doors wouldn’t open at all.

The GoFundMe page said “they screamed for help”.

“Moments after our brother that was following behind called the emergency services to alert them of the accident.”

A 4WD towing a trailer northbound on the Bruce Highway crashed through the guardrail at Bakers Creek bridge, south of Mackay. Photo: Janessa Ekert

When emergency crews – including police, paramedics and firefighters – arrived the teams worked for more than an hour to free the couple.

“The back seat of the vehicle was filled with personal belongings such as computers and TV’s, the trailer they were towing was full of house goods they had held onto for many years, a brand new John Deer ride on and thousands of dollars worth of house goods,” the campaign read.

“What was meant to be such an exciting relocation for our parents has turned into such a traumatic event.

“We just ask that any donations, big or small, will really go a long way to help us set our parents back up.

“Although they lost (the) majority of their life belongings, we are just so thankful that we still have our parents.”

For more information about the fundraiser visit here.

Originally published as GoFundMe campaign for Bakers Creek crash victims