Fly-on-the-wall report of triple fatality at Bonogin on the Gold Coast

The winding rainforest-kissed road at Bonogin is normally befitting a Sunday drive. On Friday night it became unrecognisable. Read the fly-on-the-wall report as the scene of a triple fatality unfolded

THE long and twisting road that climbs into Bonogin is the type usually reserved for scenic Sunday drives.

Bonogin Rd dips into lush, rainforest-kissed gullies and rises at regular intervals.

You can literally, to use the cliche, feel the serenity.

But then 4km up the mountain on Friday night a nightmare scene unfolds.

The lights from multiple police cars, fire trucks and ambulances bounce off the green canopy of leaves.

The nightmare scene on Friday night, where three people from the same family have died. Picture: Sam Stolz

A putrid stench of black smoke fills the air as a sea of emergency service personnel rush to and from the area of impact.

It is eerily quiet – besides the sound of raindrops hitting the trees, fruit bats flapping overhead and police talking in hushed circles.

People gather at the scene en masse. A man cries into his hands and says he “saw everything”.

He is being treated by paramedics for smoke inhalation and shock.

His wife, who lives metres away from the scene, reveals shortly after: “He ran out onto the road with no shirt,” adding “he frantically rang me to say he had pulled a woman out of a car before it exploded”.

Other locals are teary. Red-eyed in disbelief but craning their necks to catch a glimpse of the carnage.

A man is treated at the scene for shock and smoke inhalation after he reportedly pulled a woman from one of the vehicles before it exploded. Picture: Sam Stolz

A dense web of fallen power lines cross over before coming together at a downed power pole, which has landed on a black Mercedes people mover.

The car is a smouldering wreckage, a burnt-out shell in what looks like a warzone.

Police warn residents and the media to stay back, as the fallen power lines are very much still active – and lethal.

Residents at the scene are theorising that the sole female driver dragged from the wreckage before it burst into flames is the mother of Broncos star Payne Haas. They will be proven to be right.

Multiple emergency crews attended the scene. Picture: Sam Stolz

A small silver Mercedes is crumpled in a ditch further down the road.

On nightfall, forensic crash unit investigators meticulously go about their work, measuring the distance from where the vehicles collided to where they ended up with a modern type of yardstick.

Police investigation as three dead, Payne Haas’ mum involved in horror crash

The ground is muddy and downtrodden as more locals show up three hours after the crash, asking police at a line of barricades what has transpired.

This is the scene of a triple fatality. The occupants of the crumpled Mercedes - a father and mother in their 70s and their 35-year-old daughter – fail to survive.

Payne Haas’ mother Uiatu ‘Joan’ Taufua survives and was stable in hospital at the time of writing.

A scene from the immediate aftermath of the fatal crash. Picture: Facebook.

Queensland’s road death toll now sits at 296 – the worst in a decade – three more in a horror tally before the clock strikes midnight on a new year.

But for the families of those involved, no one will be counting down amid cheers and revelry.

The only resolution they will have is trying to work through a horrific tragedy which has marked them forever.