Sharon Smith recounts risking her life to warn motorists during Tasman Bridge disaster
A teenage Sharon Smith narrowly avoided plunging to her death on the night of the Tasman Bridge disaster – but that didn’t stop her from quickly leaping to the aid of others who were in danger.
Tasmania
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For the first time ever, Sharon Smith has spoken publicly about her frightening experience on the night of the Tasman Bridge disaster, when as a 16-year-old she put herself at mortal risk in order to warn motorists of the terrible danger they were in.
On the 50th anniversary on Sunday, Ms Smith and her father, Frank Manley, now 94, attended a private ceremony at the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery (TMAG) for people who had been affected by the collapse.
Ms Smith was a passenger in her father’s Holden Monaro on the fateful night of January 5, 1975, along with her mother Sylvia and her uncle John.
The Manleys were on the Tasman Bridge, bound for the Eastern Shore, when the bulk ore carrier, SS Lake Illawarra, struck a pylon and caused part of the bridge to collapse at 9.27pm.
The Monaro almost plunged into the River Derwent but Mr Manley managed to bring the car to a stop in the nick of time. The scene was captured by photographers and became the iconic image associated with the disaster.
Once she and her family had prised themselves free of their car, the teenage Ms Smith, then known as Sharon Manley, attempted to hail down a bus in the dark to alert the driver to the massive hole that had opened up in the road.
“I started going down the bridge. And after that, Dad said a car nearly ran over Mum trying to stop it,” she told the Mercury.
“And then I just ran down the bridge, waving my arms. But a bus came, and I was … knocking on the bus door, waving, and … [the driver] wouldn’t open the door. I said, ‘Stop. The bridge is gone’. And we kept on knocking and he wouldn’t open the doors.
“And he told us to f — off because we were drunk idiots. Then everyone started screaming.”
Today, Ms Smith said she was always wary whenever she crossed a bridge.
“I pick my lanes driving over the [Tasman] Bridge … and I’m always careful. I like certain lanes,” she said.
As part of the new On the Edge exhibition to mark the anniversary of the disaster, Mr Manley’s Monaro is on display at the museum, as is the Holden FB wagon that teetered over the edge of the bridge and once belonged to the late Murray Ling.
Also in attendance at the ceremony on Sunday was Edith Gaggin, whose late husband Ivan Gaggin was an engineer who helped design the replacement Tasman Bridge.
“Our kids all called it ‘Dad’s Bridge’,” she said.
Mrs Gaggin said the events to mark the 50th anniversary were a form of “closure” for those who had a personal connection to what happened.
TMAG director Mary Mulcahy said the museum had sought to acknowledge the people who died in the disaster but also the bravery of the individuals who put themselves in harm’s way to help others that night.
At 2pm on Sunday, the flagship of the Motor Yacht Club of Tasmania, the M.L. Egeria, journeyed to the bridge, where Governor Barbara Baker laid a wreath on the Derwent in remembrance of those who lost their lives 50 years ago.
Descendants of the 12 victims then laid roses in honour of their departed loved ones, as cars lined the foreshore at Montagu Bay and people gathered there to observe the proceedings from afar.
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