Father and son killed in Wellington wrong-way motorway crash
Thursday, 21 January 2021
Tragedy has struck a Wellington family again after a father and son were killed in this week's wrong-way motorway crash, just four months after the death of the family’s mother.
Police have named Lisale Foaese, 76, and George Foaese, 41, as the two people who died on Tuesday after their car collided head-on with another vehicle on Wellington Urban Motorway, about 4.20am.
CCTV footage showed their car was driven 10 kilometres in the wrong direction along the motorway – after turning right from Cornish St in Petone – before colliding with the vehicle on the flyover between the Molesworth St and Aotea on-ramps.
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Their deaths have been referred to the coroner.
A social media post by a Wellington-based funeral home showed the family’s mother, Litia Foaese, 68, died in September.
**READ MORE:
* Warning signs at highway junction not enough to prevent another fatal wrong-way collision
* Car travelled wrong way on Wellington motorway for 10km before crash, leaving two dead, two critical
* Husband searching for missing wife comes across her car at wrong-way Wellington motorway crash scene
**
The family declined to comment when approached by Stuff.
The cause of the crash remains unknown, with police inquiries still ongoing.
The two occupants of the other vehicle, Genna Te Kahika and brother Jeremy Hatley, sustained critical injuries, breaking multiple bones and requiring surgery.
Genna Te Kahika’s husband Gideon told Stuff he went searching for his wife after she didn’t return for two hours after dropping Hatley at work.
He came across her mangled car at the crash scene and rushed to where the motorway was blocked by police.
“The cop was like ‘Come over here! Come over here!’ and I was like ‘Just tell me now! Are they dead?’ Then he was like ‘Nah, they’re in hospital’ and that was a relief, but I didn’t know what the injuries were, so I wasn’t too sure what I was going to see when I saw them,” he said.
He believed their seatbelts, which had left marks on their bodies from the impact, were what had saved their lives.
His wife, who is a mother-of-two, underwent a six-hour surgery after suffering a broken hip, fibia, leg, ankle and broke “just about every bone in her foot”, Te Kahika said.