Carnage on the King's Road - News - Evening Standard
       

Carnage on the King's Road

A woman was killed and three others injured when a sports car mounted a pavement on the King's Road.

Susette Flordauza, 33, was crushed after being trapped between the bonnet of the 1975 Porsche 911 and the wall of a building when the driver lost control.

Two other women and a man were also hit in the crash, which demolished the wall of a house. It is thought the driver of the classic green sports car, a 64-year-old man, had suffered a heart attack.

Ms Flordauza, a mother-of-one from the Philippines, had been working as a nanny and cleaner for a Chelsea family and was on her way to a bus stop. She was airlifted to Charing Cross Hospital where she died yesterday from serious head injuries.

Witness Mark Clarke, 30 , described the scene on Saturday lunchtime as "complete carnage".

"I saw three people lying on the ground unable to move and one person with their head trapped in between the bonnet of the Porsche and where the wall was," he said. "She was not moving.

"I went over to another woman who had bones coming out of her leg. She was screaming 'am I going to lose my leg?' - I didn't know what to say so I gave her a hug and we said the Lord's Prayer together."

Mr Clarke, a Conservative parliamentary candidate for Tooting, had just turned on to the King's Road when he saw the wreckage at the junction with Glebe Place. "It was totally awful. There was a huge crowd just standing there watching. The fire crews had to turn the sports car's engine off because the wheels were still spinning. The driver was in a daze."

Lisa Bonham, 38, was taken to Charing Cross Hospital with a badly broken right leg. Her husband, Stephen, 47, said she was lucky to be alive. "She was popping out to the Tesco Express on the King's Road when she was hit from behind. She didn't see it coming.

"Normally she would take our five-year-old daughter Nellie with her but she has been ill with a fever and stayed at home. It is only fate that the other poor lady was killed and Lisa wasn't." Mr Bonham, a private investor, said his wife "was in total shock". Surgeons operated for four and a half hours yesterday in a bid to save her leg.

He said witnesses had told him the Porsche had been travelling very slowly until it suddenly accelerated, mounted the pavement and ploughed into the pedestrians.

The other victims suffered cuts and bruises. The man is thought to have a broken ankle. King's Road and Old Church Street were closed for six hours. A police spokesman said: "The driver of the car, a 64-year-old man, was admitted to Chelsea and Westminster Hospital suffering from an illness."

Ms Flordauza's employer, who did not want to be named, said: "She was an extremely likeable person. She had not seen her little daughter for three years. She was planning to visit her and her mother on 14 December back in the Philippines. It is such a tragedy."

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