The first person at the crash that claimed the lives of five teenagers on Sydney’s south-western fringe on Tuesday had seen trauma as a nurse, but this was “the worst of the worst”.
Compounding the horror was her closeness to the families of the victims, five students in years 9 and 11 from the nearby Picton High School who were killed at Buxton on Tuesday night when the allegedly overloaded Nissan Navara they were in left the road and hit a tree.
The five teenagers who died in the Buxton car crash. Clockwise from main: Lily Van De Putte, Summer Williams, Gabby McLennan, Tyrese Bechard and Antonio Desisto.
The woman who arrived at the scene with her teenage sons, both former students at the school who knew some of the teenagers, told the Herald she rushed to the intersection of East Road and Orange Road after “we heard a car [allegedly] going fast, then a really loud noise”.
The woman, whose background is in nursing, arrived to find the ute split in half on the narrow and dark road and the body of one of the victims flung from the cab onto the roadway.
“I tried to do CPR, but only one of them had a pulse. I couldn’t help [her],” said the woman, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of her connections to the families of the victims.
The driver and sole survivor, Tyrell Edwards, 18.
“They were all still wearing their school uniforms.
“I’ve seen it all, but not as bad as this,” she said, adding at first she had trouble identifying how many people had been in the ute because of the severity of the crash.
Picton High School students Summer Williams, Lily Van De Putte, Gabby McLennan, Antonio Desisto and Tyrese Bechard all died at the scene.
The driver, 18-year-old Buxton resident Tyrell Edwards, was “screaming for help”, she said.
He managed to climb from the wreckage, an 000 call recording obtained by Nine News shows.
She was not the only person who arrived at the crash before emergency services – also “drawn to the scene” were some of the families of the children killed, who learnt of what had happened via social media.
Edwards was taken to Liverpool Hospital with non-life-threatening injuries. He was arrested on Wednesday afternoon and was assisting detectives with inquiries at Narellan police station.
He knew the passengers from Picton High School, where he graduated last year.
Tributes at the base of a tree where five teenagers were killed in Buxton on Tuesday night.Credit:Kate Geraghty
Friends of the teenagers killed are trying to work out why the students, some as young as 14, were in the car with Edwards.
“Summer was like a sister to me,” Jamarley Frail, 18, said. “She was just the most like beautiful soul, you’d walk down the street, she’d shout out your name and be so excited to see you.
“She just didn’t deserve this at all. I do not know how she ended up in that situation. It just didn’t make sense to me and still doesn’t.”
A friend of the younger two girls, Elly Mount, said at the scene she was struggling to comprehend what had happened.
“I don’t know. I just feel like I can’t wake up,” she said.
“They texted me last night asking if I wanted to hang out with them. I could’ve got mum to pick them up. I could’ve prevented it. Now I don’t know what to do.”
Edwards returned a negative breath test at the scene. Specialist crash investigation unit officers believe speed was “a possible factor … in this crash”.
The ute was registered for four occupants and detectives are looking at it being overloaded as a line of inquiry, Acting Inspector Jason Hogan said.
“Having six people in a four-seater vehicle is inherently dangerous and it should not be done,” he said.
Police believe all six occupants were in the Navara’s cab.
John Van de Putte, the father of 15-year-old victim Lily van de Putte, told the ABC on Wednesday: “We don’t hold any grudges against the driver because he is going to go through hell.”
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