Two boys were hospitalised with serious injuries after being hit by a Holden Commodore near St Edmund’s School on Friday. The car came to a stop in Manuka a short time later. Photo: Supplied.
When the two students hit by an allegedly stolen car near their Canberra school last week woke up in hospital, the first thing they asked was how the other was going.
It is alleged that on Friday morning (28 March), 31-year-old Tayler Christian Hazell drove a car that had been stolen from NSW into another car before hitting two teenage boys as they walked along Canberra Avenue near St Edmund’s College.
Hazell, the alleged driver and sole occupant of the car, is then said to have driven off before coming to a stop on Canberra Avenue near the Manuka shops.
The boys, aged 14 and 15 and both students from St Edmund’s, were transported to Canberra Hospital.
On Monday (31 March), St Edmund’s College principal Tim Cleary said both boys were still in the intensive care unit at the hospital, but were now in a “serious but stable condition”.
“Both were conscious on Saturday evening after long surgeries on Friday,” he said.
“The first thing both asked when they opened their eyes was how the other one was going.”
The pair are good friends who go fishing together, he said.
Mr Cleary said the two were “very strong men” who had very loving and supportive families and were now on the long road to recovery.
“It was a traumatic experience because it was out the front of the school and a lot of people saw it,” the principal said of the crash.
“The scene was, as you’d expect, very confronting.
“Our energy and the community’s energy is now on the boys.”
The alleged driver, Hazell, was caught by tradespeople after allegedly trying to flee Friday’s scene on foot. He was then taken to hospital under police guard.
He faced the ACT Magistrates Court on Monday (31 March), where he was formally charged, including two counts of negligent driving causing grievous bodily harm.
Hazell, who is from Ballarat in Victoria, didn’t apply for bail, and it was formally refused by Magistrate Jane Campbel before she adjourned the matter to 24 April.
He has been charged with two counts of negligent driving occasioning grievous bodily harm, three counts relating to not giving his particulars to another person after a crash, as well as single counts of unlicensed driving, driving a motor vehicle without consent and dangerous driving.
No pleas were entered.
It has been previously alleged that earlier on Friday morning, Hazell stole the green Holden Commodore station wagon from a childcare centre in Victoria Street in Sutton, north of the ACT.
He allegedly drove off while an eight-year-old girl was still in the back seat of the car, but stopped and she got out unharmed about 100 metres down the road.
The car was last seen heading towards the ACT.
The two boys were then allegedly hit by this car about an hour later.
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