Daylesford pub car crash: Horror twist after five deaths, including two children, as car drives into beer garden at Royal Hotel, Melbourne

Witnesses have relived the horrific moments when a BMW SUV driven by an elderly man crashed into a crowded beer garden, killing five people, including a child and a teenager.

The out-of-control white BMW

The pub was busy with hundreds of customers in the hours before the crash due to the unofficial long weekend before the Melbourne Cup bank holiday on Tuesday.

The white BMW SUV struck customers, killing five people, including two men, a woman, a boy believed to be six years old and a teenage girl, and injuring several others.

Victoria Police Chief Inspector John Fitzpatrick said investigators were still trying to determine what happened and were waiting to interview the driver who was taken to hospital with non-life-threatening injuries.

It is not known whether the 66-year-old man suffered a medical episode that caused the accident.

Chief Inspector Fitzpatrick said the scene was extremely confronting and it was likely friends and family saw their loved ones die.

‘I haven’t seen something so drastic in a long time. “Any time five people die in one place, it’s devastating,” Mr Fitzpatrick said.

“We don’t like to see someone lose their life, but to see a child – you never want to see something like that.”

Local woman Rhonda White, who has lived in Daylesford for 40 years, said the usually quiet country town had been transformed into a scene worse than any movie.

She saw bodies vaporize in a cloud of blood and gore as they were hit by the car at high speed.

“There were bodies everywhere. It was gruesome. “I saw the whole crash,” she said.

‘The car went into the air. I thought it was just dust. I only now know that they were bodies. I can’t explain what I saw, something I wouldn’t even see in a movie.

‘The car pulled up, the lights flashed and I didn’t realize until later that it was all bodies around us – it was bodies I was looking at.’

Ms White described people “screaming and shouting” in the aftermath, barely able to believe what they had seen.

Another local woman who worked next door to the pub said it was the most ‘traumatic’ thing she had ever seen.

Her staff walked outside and saw bodies on the sidewalk.

“We’re all quite shocked,” she said.

“It’s pretty bad, I’ve never seen anything so traumatic in my life.”

Eyewitnesses said the badly damaged BMW remained at the scene when emergency services arrived and frantically rushed to the aid of the injured customers.

The bumper bracket was all but torn off and the hood crushed by the force of the impacts.

Police, ambulance and fire services, plus the Victorian SES all responded quickly to the scene.

The horror crash has left another seven people in hospitals from Ballarat to Melbourne, including four who had to be airlifted and are fighting for their lives.

One of them is the driver of the BMW, a 67-year-old man from Mount Macedon, who eyewitnesses saw sitting motionless in his car for ten minutes after the devastating impact.

The pub was reportedly busy all weekend and the courtyard – overlooking the town’s roundabout – was said to have been ‘full’ at the time.

Victoria Police confirmed five people were killed in the horror crash, which occurred in Vincent Street, Daylesford, 100km northwest of Melbourne.

Four rescue helicopters were dispatched to retrieve the seriously injured victims. Dozens of police and several ambulances also arrived on the scene.

A man from nearby Sailor’s Falls, just south of Daylesford, said “lots of sirens and emergency vehicles blaring through the town before 7pm” on a local community Facebook page.

The manager of a pizza restaurant near the hotel rushed outside when she heard a ‘loud bang’.

“There was some kind of collision at the roundabout, I don’t know how many cars were involved,” restaurant owner Kitty Martin told The Herald Sun.

‘The car looked pretty bad. It looks like he hit something hard. Apparently it went through a post.”

One person said the pub was busy on Sunday.

“The Royal was packed with customers outside all weekend,” she wrote on social media.

Another said The Royal Hotel was one of the most popular venues in the region. An employee at a nearby restaurant said the car involved was “messed up.”

“There are a lot of people outside,” she said.

Eyewitnesses said the badly damaged vehicle remained at the scene as emergency services arrived and frantically rushed to the aid of the injured customers.

Paramedics flew four patients to Melbourne for treatment, including one child.

The child was flown to the Royal Children’s Hospital in a serious but stable condition.

Two adults were flown to Royal Melbourne Hospital and one adult was flown to Alfred Hospital, all with serious injuries.

Paramedics also took two patients to Ballarat and one patient to Royal Melbourne in serious but stable conditions.

Victoria Police confirmed the crash on social media on Sunday evening.

“Emergency services are currently at the scene of a fatal crash in Daylesford,” a police statement said.