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The last word Den Thi Baird said was her husband’s name, presumably to warn him about a falling tree.
The aspen fell just as the car Baird was riding in the back seat rounded a narrow bend on State Highway 1 near Otago’s Waikouaiti Township shortly after Nov.5.
Alister Baird, who was out front as his brother-in-law was driving, heard his wife yell “Alister” as branches and twigs smashed through the windshield.
“The heaviest branches fell behind me and killed Den.”
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The car ended up off the road and flipped onto its roof, leaving them “hanging upside down on our seat belts.”
Baird Family / Supplied
Den Thi Baird and Alister Baird in Cambodia
Baird, who suffered a concussion in the accident, said an autopsy showed his 51-year-old wife died of brain injuries caused by a large branch hitting the ceiling.
He believed she saw the tree fall and was trying to warn him and his brother-in-law Oukra, who has since returned to their home in Cambodia.
“I think he really thought that was the end.”
HAMISH MCNEILLY / Things
Emergency services were called into an accident on Waikouaiti-Waitati Rd between Russell and Allen highways, just south of the small settlement of Otago in Waikouaiti at 12:09 p.m. Thursday. One person died at the scene.
In the days after the accident, the police launched an investigation into what they called a “strange accident.”
That likely includes why the poplar, now a stump with a rotten core and marked with flowers, was not previously spotted as a potential hazard.
New Zealand Transport Agency (NZTA) emails sent to Things under the Official Information Act they reveal that the tree was not on a watch list.
At the time of the accident, contractors were working just 100 meters from the road on behalf of NZTA and were among the first to arrive.
Hamish McNeilly / Stuff
An area where a tree fell causing a fatal crash. Since then, the trees have been cut down.
They helped remove the fallen tree and debris, which nearly crushed other vehicles as they fell onto SH1’s Waikouaiti-Waitati Rd.
An email from a senior NZTA manager, sent within hours of the incident, said: “This tree was not part of the planned construction, so it was not touched.”
HAMISH MCNEILLY / Things
Nearby contractor machinery helped remove the debris.
“The initial public perception is that the collapse of the tree was related to our activities, which was incorrect.”
The emails reveal that the tree was not on the agency’s radar.
It was not included in an NZTA dangerous tree map, which covers 1 km of Waikouaiti-Waitati Rd.
However, hundreds of meters further south, another nine tree sections had been assessed, some in need of immediate felling, others declared unstable.
Hamish McNeilly / Stuff
Emergency services at the scene of a fatal car accident on State Highway One near Waikouaiti, north of Dunedin.
The night of the accident, NZTA emailed the contractors regarding the old poplar trees “in order to remove them as soon as possible when they are of the same species (poplar), age and shape.”
Baird said Things the reason they were shot down is simple.
“They are all rotten inside.”
Hamish McNeilly / Stuff
Flowers next to a poplar tree, which was felled after a fatal accident.
A large cavity can be seen not only in the stump of the tree that caused the crash, but in others nearby.
You haven’t heard from anyone at NZTA yet, but you were told Things: ”I’m not angry”.
In September, a consultant e-mailed the agency with concern that trees 100 meters south of the crash site required “special attention.”
A senior NZTA manager responded that he had asked someone to inspect them and check if they were in a dangerous tree registry.
Hamish McNeilly / Stuff
Police talk to other motorists at the scene of a fatal car accident.
“There seems to be a large number in total,” said the manager. “We are taking care of the ones outside of the adjacent property because they are already failing.”
Questions Things to the NZTA about their processes to identify dangerous trees and contact the Baird family received no response.
Hamish McNeilly / Stuff
Alister Baird at his home in Waikouaiti
Baird acknowledged that the accident was likely a strange accident and could have claimed more lives, but he still wants answers on behalf of his wife, whom he had been with since 2004 and married five years later.
” The tree probably would have hit someone else, if we hadn’t been there. It’s just devastating. ”
The couple had big plans for retirement after selling their fish and chips shop, Fish Inn, in Waikouaiti last December.
Hamish McNeilly / Stuff
Contractors and heavy machinery working nearby helped remove a fallen tree shortly after the accident.
“ That’s what bothers me … it’s what she misses. ”
That included plans to explore several of New Zealand’s famous walks and spend more time together.
In 1975, Dem was just seven years old when the Khmer Rouge won a civil war, leading to the genocide of a quarter of Cambodia’s population, including his own father.
He spent 15 years in refugee camps before settling in New Zealand.
Baird Family / Supplied
Den Thi Baird on her wedding day in Cambodia.
Last year, the couple returned to Cambodia to build a house, in the mountains near Siem Riap.
Baird returned to New Zealand in February with the intention of returning to Cambodia in July, but was stopped by Covid.
His plans were postponed, with Den returning to New Zealand on October 19 and two weeks of isolation in Christchurch.
Baird picked her up just four days before the accident, and the couple enjoyed a short break before heading home.
At his home in Waikouaiti, together for one night and one morning, his wife picked a bouquet of flowers and put them on the dining room table.
Baird continues to play that November 5 morning in his mind: If only his wife had driven instead of his brother-in-law, then his life might have been saved.
”I miss her so much.”
