Remember when: Miami High graduate Emma Courtney was killed as report pushed council merger

A CELEBRATING 17-year-old Gold Coast girl was dead and another on life support following a tragic start to Schoolies’ Week.

Gold Coast Bulletin, Saturday November 19, 1994.

Gold Coast Bulletin, Saturday November 19, 1994.

A CELEBRATING 17-year-old Gold Coast girl was dead and another on life support following a tragic start to Schoolies’ Week.

Miami High School student Emma Courtney, 17, of Koala Park at Burleigh Heads was killed in a hit-and-run accident on the Gold Coast Highway at Tallebudgera at 3.45am.

Emma graduated just three nights earlier at an end-of-year celebration at the Marriott Hotel in Surfers Paradise.

She had been due to collect her graduation certificate the morning she died.

In another incident, an 18-year-old youth was on life support n Toowoomba Base Hospital after an apparent binge drinking session following a school formal.

Acting Gold Coast Superintendent Pat Crotty said Schoolies Week had “got off to a tragic and extremely disappointing start” and that it was a “grim warning to all school leavers”.

“This is not the first death we’ve had in the past (during Schoolies Week) and that’s why we continue to issue the warnings,” he said.

“It’s a tragedy.”

‘She was with some friends waiting at a bus stop and it would appear she wandered out to the roadway in front of the passing vehicle.”

Meanwhile, a 3000-siganture petition and 238 submissions were not enough to change the stance of Local Government commissioner Greg Hoffman that the Gold Coast City and Albert shire areas should be merged into a super council.

Mr Hoffman’s final report was presented to Local Government Minister Terry Mackenroth and it was up to cabinet to either accept or reject it.

He told media he was “confident” the Goss Government would accept the final report.

The councils merged in 1995.