Kylie-Anne Hooper’s car window smashed, two days before Christmas

A Rockhampton mum was parked at traffic lights when a rock was shot at her car window. “I just put my hazards on and I started tearing up, (thinking) what was that, what happened?”

Mum Kylie-Anne Hooper was parked at traffic lights on her way to Stockland Rockhampton when she had the fright of her life.

She was stopped at a red light at the Moores Creek Road and High Street intersection, near the Kershaw Gardens waterfall, when a loud bang echoed through her car as her driver’s window smashed and glass ricocheted everywhere.

“This thing just shot straight through my window in a downward angle … I just completely froze,” she said.

“I was like oh my god what just happened … I just put my hazards on and I started tearing up, (thinking) what was that, what happened?

“Initially I thought it was a gunshot, that’s how loud it was and the impact of it.

“I’d never heard it before … then I stopped and thought about it.”

She pulled off into Aquatic Place and called her work, as she was on her way to start a shift, and then went to mechanics at the BP service station and explained what just happened and the staff helped her clean the glass.

“There was glass all through the car, the seats … because as I was driving the whole window was crumbling everywhere,” she said.

A stone was on the floor mat with all the glass and Ms Hooper believes the stone was thrown at her car, potentially from a slingshot.

“It definitely wasn't a stone from an oncoming car, there were no cars whatsoever, it was all still and it came out of nowhere,” she said.

The incident happened with the worst timing – on December 23, two days out from Christmas.

Ms Hooper called multiple windscreen businesses and was first quoted up to $600.

“It was terrible, during work times I was going from next client to next client I was on the phone to everybody and I got a lot of bad feedback because it is a Dodge Journey and they are an American based car through Chrysler and all the parts have to come from the States … no one could help me,” she said.

“It continued through to Christmas Eve and I was due to go away for Christmas and I had no window so I taped it up with cling wrap and tape … it was raining … I just didn't have any options.

“Everyone shut down until the 4th of January and I couldn't do anything.”

Thankfully, she managed to find a windscreen through a wholesale wreckers in Brisbane, it was shipped overnight, and CQ Windscreens fitted it.

“I went back to work and my clients have to go in the car … and my window was broken,” she said.

“I was so stressed out, there were storms coming.”

The whole exercise cost Ms Hooper $220 for which she hasn’t been compensated.

The matter has been reported to Policelink but she has not received any response.

“It’s hard these days, not a lot of people have savings in their bank account, and it was only just as I got paid that it happened and I had to put the money aside,” Ms Hooper said.

“At the end of the day, I am the one that was out of pocket, there was no consequences or anything like that.”

The one positive from the event was Ms Hooper wasn’t injured from the glass, nor were her kids or any clients in the car.

“If I had my head tilted slightly forward, it would have hit my head,” she said.