Five people including two children have died after a car crashed into the beer garden of a pub in Daylesford in rural Victoria.
Just after 6pm on Sunday, a white BMW SUV mounted the kerb and hit patrons on the Vincent Street pub’s front lawn, police said. Two men, a woman and a child died at the scene.
Emergency services attended the scene, including State Emergency Service crews from Daylesford, Bacchus Marsh and Ballarat, and police asked the public to avoid the area.
A female child, reportedly a teenager, was flown to hospital where she later died. A male child was also flown to hospital with critical injuries. The victims are yet to be formally identified.
A man, a woman and a boy were also taken to hospital with non-life-threatening injuries.
The driver of the BMW, a 66-year-old man from Mount Macedon, was taken to hospital with non-life-threatening injuries.
The accident happened at the Royal Daylesford hotel, a popular venue on the main street in the tourist-favourite town.
Detectives from the major collision investigation unit were working to determine the exact circumstances.
Supt John Fitzpatrick from Victoria police said officers were waiting to speak to the driver. He said diners had been eating when the car came down the hill along Albert Street and left the road.
“We don’t believe that speed was excessive,” he said.
He also said: “Families have got loved ones that are no longer going to be around.”
The Victoria Ambulance’s regional director, Trevor Weston, told Nine’s Today show emergency crews had been confronted with “an extremely chaotic scene”.
He said members of the public had done a “fantastic job” to help the injured until ambulance paramedics arrived. “We had about seven ambulances and four ambulance helicopters dispatched and conveyed those patients off to hospital,” Weston said.
He told reporters that the injuries were “quite traumatic for a number of those patients”.
Daylesford was a close-knit community, he said, and some of the initial crews were from the area. “You never want to respond to any incident like this but certainly not in your home town,” Weston said.
The Victorian premier, Jacinta Allan, thanked those who helped victims – including emergency services workers – at the scene of the “horrific” crash.
“My thoughts are with all those injured, and with the friends and family of those who have tragically died,” Allan said on X, formerly known as Twitter, on Monday morning.
The Hepburn shire mayor, Brian Hood, said Daylesford would have been crowded on Sunday, with many people enjoying the warm evening over the unofficial Melbourne Cup long weekend. “This will send shock waves through the community for some time,” he told ABC TV.
The federal infrastructure minister, Catherine King, whose Ballarat electorate includes Daylesford, asked the community to follow advice from emergency services as crews carry out their work.
“My thoughts are with all those at the scene, their friends and families and the broader Daylesford community,” she said on X.
Anyone who witnessed the incident or has dashcam/CCTV footage is urged to contact Crime Stoppers.
• The headline on this article was amended on 6 November 2023. Due to an editing error, an incorrect draft headline momentarily appeared on this story and it has been removed.
