Raeleen Borg estimates it was about 4pm when she first heard the voice. It was Monday, September 26, and the Mount Cottrell resident was at her home on Sewells Road when a noise coming from her yard caught her attention.
“I go outside and there’s this young girl in hysterics, just drenched in water, and I asked her ‘where did you come from?’, and she said ‘out of your dam’, Ms Borg said.
“I said [to her], ‘out of my dam?’ and she said, ‘yeah, there’s a car in your dam’.”
Ms Borg said the girl, who appeared to be in her twenties, was shaken up and inconsolable.
“It was terrible just to see her the way she was, in a panic, thinking she was going to drown in the dam,” she said.
“We didn’t even hear her, and she said she had been calling out for help for ages.”
Ms Borg said the girl told her she had been driving down one side of Sewells Road, when she saw another car coming the opposite way.
“She thought he wasn’t going to move so she veered off the side of the road … ended up in my property and then landed in the dam,” she said.
Sewells Road is a narrow sealed road, with gravel on either side.
Two cars attempting to use the road at the same time are forced to move to the side, half on the gravel, to make way for one another.
Ms Borg said the road also had deep potholes which are often camouflaged by dirt.
Ms Borg said she’d been complaining to the council that someone was going to be injured on the road unless it was fixed, but her complaints weren’t rectified.
“Every single road that’s around here, is just terrible [because of] the amount of traffic that comes through this area now, they don’t think before releasing the land to developers,” she said.
Wyndham council city operations director Stephen Thorpe said a number of roads in the area had been impacted by increased traffic volumes from surrounding developments.
“Sewells Road is graded every six weeks, however Wyndham City officers are currently re-evaluating the schedule to manage road defects in a more timely manner,” Mr Thorpe said.
“Following discussions with a resident from Sewells Road who advised Wyndham City of a recent incident, officers have requested a safety audit be conducted to inform us of any interim measures that can be put in place to assist with traffic in the area.”
“This may include a reduction of the speed limit or additional advanced warning signage.”
Mr Thorpe said there were currently no plans to upgrade Sewells Road to a full width pavement, as the area is subject to future development which would include a series of road construction projects.
Mr Borg said advocating for better roads sometimes felt pointless.
“It’s like a broken record,” she said.
“If something were to happen to her, I would have been traumatised, if we found her body.
“I just want these road fixed, because I don’t want to see anyone hurt.”
