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‘They were flying like skittles’: witnesses describe horror as car carved deadly path through CBD

WITNESSES have described their horror at seeing “contorted bodies” flying ‘like skittles’ into the air in Melbourne this afternoon. WARNING: Graphic

Matt YoungMatt Young
@MattYoung
4 min read
January 20, 2017 - 10:03PM
A person is pulled from a crashed car

WARNING: Graphic images

WITNESSES have described their horror at seeing bodies “flying” into the air as a car allegedly deliberately targeted pedestrians as it rampaged through Bourke Street Mall in Melbourne this afternoon.

CCTV footage shows terrified pedestrians running for safety as a car is seen flying down the street.

One woman, Renee, who was waiting nearby and facing the window of Bourke Street, told news.com.au she heard a “loud thud” as three people were hit in front of her eyes.

“I saw the car on the footpath and I saw the people out of the corner of my eye fly in the air,:" she said.

“There were three or four contorted bodies on the ground. I could see the people on the footpath that had been run over.

“There was a girl standing right in front, the car had missed her. She looked around, saw the bodies, looked down the street, then just started screaming.

“You don’t even know what you’re watching, looking at as it unfolds.”

The incident was related to an earlier stabbing earlier on Friday and was not terror-related, Acting Victoria Police Commander Stuart Bateson said.

One mother begged “Where is my baby?” after the pram was dragged under a vehicle and left mangled in the road.

Former Victorian police chief commissioner Christine Nixon was crossing the road when the car raced by and had to step out of the way.

Ms Nixon said she saw a pram on the ground and helped the mother. “She kept asking me ‘where’s the baby’,” Ms Nixon told ABC.

Four people have been confirmed dead, with another 20 injured. Four children are injured, with one critical and the other three serious.

Witnesses reported hearing at least five gunshots before the man was arrested after ploughing into people in the mall.

“There’s someone on the middle of the ground and there’s blood all over the street,” Rishi Hathiramani, a CBD shopkeeper, told AAP.

“I’ve seen accidents but never this bad.

“It’s pretty brutal.” Police confirmed they shot the man during the arrest, and that the wounds were not life threatening.

An employee of a health food store just off Bourke Street said the scene was “just crazy”.

“You could hear the car hitting stuff and people were just screaming,” the witness told news.com.au.

“People were running everywhere. It was just crazy.”

He said he saw two bodies covered up lying near emergency personnel while others were frantically seeking treatment.

“I can’t believe it. There was one guy who was just screaming near them (the bodies). He looked real bad. I think he just lost his mate.

“They were just over there, but there were people injured all up the street.”

Witness Sian Bayliss told the ABC the driver appeared to have deliberately aimed his car at pedestrians.

“There was no hesitation ... He was just collecting people He was just collecting people as he was going along. They were flying like Skittles basically. He was just driving in a really determined fashion, just in a straight line.

American tourists Michelle and Daryl told Sky News they saw at least four or five people injured and heard at least five gun shots as they ducked for safety.

“We were coming up the street and we saw the pram down from up the street,” Michelle said. “(We took cover) then we came back out and saw all the people injured on the side walk. I saw four or five (people injured). There were police everywhere. They drew their weapons right away.

“(I was) stunned when I saw them drawing their weapons. People started screaming. We ran the opposite direction of police. People started screaming.”

Another witness, known as Chris, told Sky News there was “just a hell of a lot of blood.

“I feel pretty moved and quite sick. It’s a horrible thing to have had happened.”

Police say the driver was involved in a stabbing in Windsor in Melbourne’s inner southeast in the early hours of Friday and a hostage situation on the other side of town where a woman escaped from his car on the Bolte Bridge.

Emily Cousins told AAP she saw police trying to stop the car during the hostage situation in West Melbourne at 11.45am on Friday.

“Three to four response guys jump out with tasers or guns yelling ‘don’t move’,” Ms Cousins said.

“Then the red car turns across in front of my car and the front passenger ... jumped out of the moving vehicle.”

Meanwhile, another eyewitness who saw the car “circling and circling” around Flinders Street Station told News 24 she saw the driver “half hanging outside the car”.

“A few friends and I just walked out of Flinders Street Station and we saw basically a whole swarm of people go just directly outside the station to see a car that was just circling and circling around, and instantly we thought it was a car crash.

“People were trying to stop this man who was driving around and around and he was half hanging outside the car — even the street performer in Federation Square was warning the crowd to stay away, because he was just so reckless, to the point where he just didn’t care, obviously, what he was doing.

“It was absolute chaos and from that very moment, the sirens have not stopped.”

— Additional reporting by Tyson Otto and Marnie O’Neill

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Original URL: https://www.news.com.au/national/victoria/news/witnesses-describe-horror-as-they-saw-pedestrians-flying-in-the-air-as-erratic-car-drove-through-melbourne-cbd/news-story/5af07ef363c84c585909b00d66ba55f0