Last night I heard fire brigade sirens in the distance; nothing unusual about that. A few minutes later more sirens. Over the next 15 minutes or so yet more sirens. Assuming it was a fire I continued reading – actually, re-reading, Paul Johnson’s Modern Times. The distinctive sound of a passing helicopter – not the police chopper – made me put down my book and go outside for a look. The helicopter was circling in the distance, hovered and descended out of sight.

My interest aroused, I grabbed the camera and went to see what was happening. It took a while to find the action but with multiple emergency vehicles to follow I was soon on the scene of a car accident. Avoiding police lines I circled down to the beach and around behind where the action seemed to be, eventually coming upon the mangled remains of a late model Holden Commodore, it’s roof peeled back to gain access to the car’s obviously injured occupants

The car, bearing Mandurah plates, apparently being driven by a woman, failed to negotiate a bend in the wet road, mounted the curb, shredded a tree, sheared off a power pole, slid across the wet grass and through a wire fence (with a large metal pipe top piece), eventually ending up in the dunes. The male passenger suffering a major head injury.

Excessive speed might well be a factor in this crash; the car appears to have been travelling at a speed well above the posted 50 kmh limit.