A passenger whose jaw was struck by a rock thrown through a cab window in Queenstown last Sunday says she could easily have been more seriously injured.
Katie Hensman — on her first weekend out since returning to Queenstown permanently — was in the rear left seat in a Corporate Cabs taxi she’d caught with three other friends.
As the vehicle turned into Lake Hayes Estate, from Howards Drive, about 4.30am, she says the friend next to her said, ‘‘there’s glass in my mouth’’.
‘‘And then I was like, ‘I’m covered in glass’.’’
A rock — which she located on her seat, ‘‘not quite as big as my fist’’ — had struck the bottom left corner of her jaw.
She quickly realised it hadn’t been flicked up from the road, but thrown through the window.
She and her friend ‘‘blinked out’’ glass bits from their eyes.
‘‘I had cuts on the face and on my hands, but minor abrasions, nothing serious.
‘‘There’s so many ways this could have gone a lot, lot worse and seriously injured someone.’’
She immediately called the police on 111 — ‘‘they were going to come but they then decided we could leave’’.
Hensman says the car stopped and her friends got out but couldn’t see anyone.
Later that day she visited the police to give a statement, and also sought medical attention this week.
In response to a community Facebook post, she found something similar had happened to four other people between 4 and 4.30am.
Cabbie Aftaab Singh Sandhu says it appears two stones were thrown at his vehicle — ‘‘one made its mark, the other one grazed the front door’’.
Echoing Hensman, he says ‘‘I don’t expect this sort of behaviour to happen in our wonderful little town’’.
He admits it hit him hard — ‘‘when things happen like this, it makes you really question, ‘well, what am I doing in my life?’
‘‘I’m not one to show my emotions, but inside I’m just totally cut up, I just feel so bad, I can’t even tell you how awful it is.’’
He’s unhappy police wouldn’t finger print the rock in case it matched up with any ‘‘unruly people’’ on their data base.
Luckily, he’s insured, but beyond replacing the shattered window, he’s wanting to ensure his car’s professionally cleaned before he resumes work, hopefully this weekend.
Local Corporate Cabs boss Ian Paterson says he was ‘‘bloody well shocked’’ when he heard about the incident.
‘‘It’s devastating, something you don’t sort of expect in Queenstown.
‘‘Who the heck would be out at 4 in the morning biffing rocks at cars going past?
‘‘It’s annoying that taxi guys are out there doing a job, getting people home safely, and this sort of thing happens.’’
