Daylesford crash: The grisly aftermath of a dark Sunday as five people lose their lives

The Sunday before the Melbourne Cup is always special in Victoria. Many take the Monday off and head to tourist towns like Daylesford with family and friends to enjoy a four-day weekend.

The aftermath of the fatal car crash in Daylesford on Sunday evening.

Abandoned sunglasses lying among jugs. Cups scattered around a broken bench seat. An empty pram. A buckled light pole, snapped from its base, lying across the road.

Monday morning’s aftermath outside the Royal Hotel on Daylesford’s busiest round-about, where three streets intersect in the heart of this tourist town, offered a glimpse into the carnage and chaos that erupted little more than 12 hours earlier.

Five people — three adults and two children — lost their lives shortly after 6pm Sunday when a BMW SUV travelling down Albert St mounted the kerb and ploughed into the beer garden. There are fears for a sixth victim, believed to be another child.

Witnesses said the BMW was like a “rocket” launching into the crowd. Police would not estimate how fast the driver was going when he lost control of the car, but it was fast enough to shear the metal pole from its base.

The Sunday before the Melbourne Cup is always special in Victoria. Many take the Monday off and head to tourist towns like Daylesford with family and friends to enjoy a four-day weekend.

People leave flowers at the Royal Daylesford Hotel where five were killed.

The weather was ideallic here, just 110km north-west of Melbourne, on Sunday, and there would have been some spring warmth still in the air as crowds, including many families with young children, gathered around the tables of the Royal’s street-side beer garden.

Local said it was packed with people drinking beer and wine and laughing.

But in a flash of tragedy, the evening changed. The BMW ploughed through the crowd and continued for some way, before coming to a stop just outside the pub. The front of the SUV was seriously dented. The driver, a man in his mid-60s from a nearby town, sat in behind the steering wheel, perhaps too shocked to get out. He is in Ballarat hospital.

In those first hellish minutes after the crash, people went from pub goers to life savers as they put down their drinks and started working on the injured. The scale of the tragedy is illustrated by the fact four ambulance choppers landed in Daylesford to fly the most seriously injured to hospital in Melbourne.

Jenna Accquarola placed some flowers at the beer garden on Monday. The previous night, just an hour before the tragedy, she had been drinking in the same beer garden. But in a sliding doors moment, she and her boyfriend had decided to head back to their holiday accommodation to get ready for dinner.

“Just before the accident we were sitting there,” she said.

“This is so sad for Daylesford, so sad for the families. It had been a beautiful night, the sun was going down, and everyone was enjoying the night, anbd then it was instantly just destroyed.”

The car crashed into the beer garden of the Vincent Street venue about 6.05pm last night.

The Melbourne woman arrived back at the beer garden about five minutes after the accident, to see that it had been transformed into a hellish scene of dead and injured.

“We saw it, and it was horrible,” she said, describing how there were “white sheets all over the road”.

Ambulance Victoria commander Trevor Watson on Monday morning described the scene as “very confronting” and “chaotic” in the moments after the BMW struck the victims.

Daylesford is one of those “tree change” Aussie towns where Melburnians flock to for weekend getaways and spa treatments. It has a booming AIRBNB economy and the main street is lined with restaurants, cafes, wellness outlets, art galleries and bars.

The Royal has been serving locals and holiday makers since 1916, opposite the pub is the town’s cenotaph to locals who lost their lives in war.

People come to Dayalesford to love, laugh and live with family and friends. It’s this peaceful history that makes the death and mayhem of Sunday night all the more painful.