Bar Beach car off cliff: Bronwyn and Dave Constable relive trauma
It’s a tale of miraculous survival. A “traumatic” event for Lambton couple Bronwyn and Dave Constable when they saw a car “launch” off a cliff at Bar Beach and head straight for them. READ THEIR STORY
Newcastle
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A husband has described the terror of a car “coming straight at us” as it plummeted 25m over a cliff among an “asteroid field” of debris and hit his wife while they enjoyed a day at the beach.
Dave and Bronwyn Constable said it was “unbelievable” that no-one was killed at Newcastle’s Bar Beach that “traumatic” Thursday morning,
It was the first trip to the beach since last summer for the Lambton couple.
They were also catching up with other family members including Ms Constable’s sister-in-law Bec about 10am when the unthinkable happened.
“I’m sure I heard Bec yell out there’s a car over the cliff,” Mr Constable said.
“I saw something out of the corner of my eye and then all I can remember is this car coming straight over the cliff straight at us.
“It was all a blur because things happened so quickly.”
Mr Constable fell on his knees, just metres from where the car came crashing down.
“We were just metres from where the passenger side door flung open,” he said.
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Ms Constable said the couple were taking family photos, just four minutes before the car plunged over the cliff from a clifftop parking area.
“Dave and I were just playing near the edge of the water and then my sister-in-law Bec arrived with her four-year-old girl,” Ms Constable said.
“We were talking about how crazy the wind was and maybe we should have been at the baths.”
Ms Constable only remembers the “almighty thud” and crashing noise before she found herself lying on the sand in pain, with people scattered everywhere.
“I don’t think I lost consciousness, it was just more shock of the noise and shock of the thud,” she said.
“I must have landed pretty hard, I don’t know how I fell or what hit me and my whole leg was in pain.”
The couple both remember the driver — a 47-year-old woman screaming in agony before an off-duty emergency doctor who had been at the beach at the time, and a lifeguard, came to their aid.
Ms Constable received three screws in her hip following emergency surgery on Thursday night at John Hunter Hospital and also suffered a fractured femur.
Mr Constable was lucky to escape injury.
It’s a day at the beach the Constables, who have a 19-month-old son Malachi, will never forget, with a tale of survival to tell in future years.
“I can’t believe a car flew off a cliff and nobody was seriously hurt,” Ms Constable said.
“Miraculous I think, divine intervention.
“At first I was in shock, but when I read it in the paper. It was surreal, that was me they were talking about.
“We could have lost five members of one family.”
Mr Constable added: “I still have these flashbacks, of this car coming over a cliff and all this debris, it’s like an asteroid field.
“I still can’t believe no-one died.”
A Wallsend woman, who was allegedly driving the car, suffered multiple fractures and was arrested and charged in hospital on Friday with driving in a dangerous manner causing grievous bodily harm.
She was given a bedside hearing where she was refused bail and is due to reappear in Newcastle Local Court on October 1.