{"id":323241,"date":"2026-03-10T23:48:08","date_gmt":"2026-03-10T23:48:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/323241\/"},"modified":"2026-03-10T23:48:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-10T23:48:08","slug":"mother-and-schoolgirl-badly-injured-after-car-smashes-into-forrest-hill-cafe-on-aucklands-north-shore","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/323241\/","title":{"rendered":"Mother and schoolgirl badly injured after car smashes into Forrest Hill cafe on Auckland\u2019s North Shore"},"content":{"rendered":"

The owner said the daughter was wearing a Westlake Girls\u2019 High School uniform and in \u201cyear 12 or 13, I can\u2019t remember\u201d.<\/p>\n

Westlake Girls\u2019 High School declined to comment.<\/p>\n

The crash \u201csounded like a boom\u201d, Sun said. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe glass is not broken, just the wall.\u201d<\/p>\n

The pair\u2019s dog wasn\u2019t hurt, said Sun, who also knew the driver as a regular customer.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey are all really nice.\u201d<\/p>\n

There was no one else inside or outside the cafe when the crash occurred, Sun said.<\/p>\n

She expected the cafe would be closed for a couple of weeks, and while she had insurance, she wasn\u2019t exactly sure what it covered. <\/p>\n

Her landlord had insurance for the building, which had not been damaged by a vehicle in the three years she\u2019d owned the cafe, Sun said.<\/p>\n

Neighbour woken by \u2019boom\u2019<\/p>\n

Another witness described dramatic scenes after the crash, with a woman lying on the ground and a \u201cyoung girl\u201d with injuries to her face, while a man living across the road woke to a \u201cboom\u201d before seeing a woman being taken out of the cafe on a \u201cstructure\u201d by emergency services.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe thought something fell down from up [above].\u201d<\/p>\n

Two people, one in critical condition and the other in a moderate condition, were taken to Auckland City Hospital, with a third \u2013 also in a moderate condition \u2013 treated at the scene but declining to be taken to hospital, Hato Hone St John said.<\/p>\n

Three ambulances, two rapid response units, and two operations managers were sent, St John said.<\/p>\n

\u2018Nothing to indicate it\u2019s suspicious\u2019<\/p>\n

The crash was \u201can isolated incident and we don\u2019t have any ongoing fears\u201d, but people should stay away, police district shift commander Senior Sergeant Dean Roberts said.<\/p>\n

\u201cNothing to indicate it\u2019s suspicious. We\u2019re still early in our investigation, but we\u2019re progressing quickly.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Criminal Investigation Bureau was at the scene, as was the Serious Crash Unit. <\/p>\n

William Souter St was closed between East Coast Rd and Morton Ave, police said.<\/p>\n

\"TheThe single-vehicle crash was on William Souter St in Forrest Hill just before 9am. Photo \/ Michael Craig<\/p>\n

The cafe is among a handful of shops on the small commercial strip, with parking directly in front. <\/p>\n

Photos from the scene showed a hatchback crashed into the front glass window of the cafe.<\/p>\n

About a dozen officers were at the scene, moving the public away from the crash site.<\/p>\n

\u2018She looked like she may have been tossed by the car\u2019<\/p>\n

Apex Trophies & Engraving staff member Jess told Newstalk ZB she and colleagues rushed to help after hearing the \u201cmassive\u201d crash at the neighbouring cafe.<\/p>\n

\u201cPretty much the whole door has been destroyed with the window knocked out\u201d.<\/p>\n

A woman was lying on the ground, Jess said. <\/p>\n

\u201cShe was who we were most worried about, because she looked so stunned. It looked like she may have been tossed by the car.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"TheThe single-vehicle crash was on William Souter St, near the East Coast Rd intersection, in Forrest Hill just before 9am. Photo \/ Michael Craig<\/p>\n

A \u201cyoung girl\u201d had also been badly hurt on her face, but she was walking around, which Jess took as a good sign, she told Newstalk ZB.<\/p>\n

Olivia, who did not give her surname, works at the K-medi Clinic nearby and told the Herald she heard a loud noise and dogs barking.<\/p>\n

The crash was \u201cshocking\u201d, the cafe regular said.<\/p>\n

Second incident in weeks<\/p>\n

The incident comes weeks after a car smashed into another Auckland cafe moments after its owner closed the doors.<\/p>\n

The crash occurred on February 23 at Columbus Glen Innes<\/a>, when a woman mistook her car accelerator for the brake and smashed through the store\u2019s glass doors.<\/p>\n

It wasn\u2019t the first time the cafe had been struck by a car, co-owner Sudhakar Bacharam said.<\/p>\n

In 2019, just six months after Bacharam took over the store, a customer crashed into the business after accidentally pushing the accelerator instead of the brake, Bacharam said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The owner said the daughter was wearing a Westlake Girls\u2019 High School uniform and in \u201cyear 12 or…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":323242,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[74,95,3952,11425,1558,1882,48706,3944,15979,14032,174543,305,2959,31037,10933,296,6178,111,43,139,529,69,90,14727,2738,312,11161,6505,18484,37451,78891,8229,3608,1354],"class_list":["post-323241","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-after","tag-and","tag-aucklands","tag-badly","tag-been","tag-cafe","tag-cafes","tag-car","tag-crashed","tag-daughter","tag-forrest","tag-have","tag-high","tag-hill","tag-injured","tag-into","tag-mother","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-north","tag-nz","tag-on","tag-outside","tag-owner","tag-says","tag-schoolaged","tag-schoolgirl","tag-shore","tag-sitting","tag-smashes","tag-they","tag-were","tag-woman"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/323241","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=323241"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/323241\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/323242"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=323241"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=323241"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=323241"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}