'What have you done?' family's anguish for man killed in Port Kembla crash

He went to yell a warning - "watch out" - as his father was unloading a car trailer on the roadside Saturday afternoon. But there wasn't time for the words to leave his mouth.

Mark Spackman, 62-year-old grandfather of three, South Coast Clydesdale breeder, safe haven provider, workhorse, builder, purveyor of a thousand wise sayings, father of two and "adoptive" father to another - had his leg cut clean from his body as he was caught between the back of the trailer and the Suzuki.

His son was watching as he flew through the air. His wife of 41 years, Rhonda, had been at his side seconds earlier. Now she held him in her arms on the road. She would later tell her daughter-in-law that her beloved's eyes looked apologetic before he slipped away.

The crash occurred just after 3.15pm, about 100m east of the Shellharbour Road roundabout.

The Suzuki driver, a 17-year-old red p-plater from Unanderra, was reported to have suffered serious injuries, but police have confirmed she was well enough to later attend Lake Illawarra Police Station. No charges have yet been laid.

After speaking with neighbours, the Spackmans believe the girl had a puppy in the front seats with her when she crashed.

Phillip found himself face-to-face with the girl in the moments after impact, as he screamed for an ambulance and an off-duty nurse came to render first aid.

"She looked me straight in the face. I said, 'what have you done? What have you done to my father?" he told the Mercury.

THE DAY OF THE CRASH

The elder Spackmans had travelled from their farm at Pyree, south-east of Nowra, to lend their daughter-in-law Tahlia Spackman a car after hers broke down.

Mark was about to pull down the ramp on the car carrier and had asked his wife to collect a strap from their car. He was hit as she was returning to him with it.

Police are now investigating claims the Suzuki driver was speeding. The Spackmans say their two cars and the trailer, weighing a combined 5000 kilograms, were shunted up the road on impact and had all since been written off.

Gouges and markings on the roadway are a constant reminder for the younger Spackmans, who are haunted by what they saw.

"His leg - I only saw it for a split second but I can't get the image out of my mind," Tahlia said.

"It was just him lying there on the road with the bone sticking out of his leg, just bleeding out. We can't open our curtains because we can still see the stain on the road. The crime scene's right there. It's hard. Phillip hasn't slept properly since it happened."

Phillip Spackman went to work on Monday, wanting a distraction. He is devastated and also angry, believing his father's life could have been spared.

He told the Mercury he contacted police and Wollongong City Council numerous times with concerns about the road in the six years his family has lived there.

He estimates he made dozens of reports to police, even providing photographs and video footage of lead-footed offenders.

He says a council representative "kept telling me the traffic committee would have to look at it".

"Someone was going to get killed weren't they? It just happened to be my father."

A neighbour told the Mercury she was frequently fearful of drivers traveling at speed behind her, as she slowed down to pull into her driveway.

"This is a 50-zone, but no one goes 50 along here," she said.

Mark Spackman seldom told his children that he loved them, or that they made him proud. He told other people this - but was simply "an emotional cripple at times", Phillip said. And yet, for him, "family was number one".

He met his future wife at a pool party when she was 15 and he was 17. As their romance bloomed, he would drive from Sydney to Melbourne to see her. Their marriage, when she was 19 and he was 21, was in defiance of Rhonda's father, an army man.

"He wanted her to marry an army man," Phillip said. "He thought dad was never good enough for my mum. But she married him, just a plain old tradesman. She loved his sense of humour. He was always trying to make people laugh. He always went out of his way to make her feel special. She never wanted for anything."

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Using skills handed down from his own father, Mark built the couple's home to his wife's specifications, first at Cambewarra then and their present-day home in Pyree, where the couple bred Clydesdales.

"He always used to tell me he just loved her from the moment he saw her," Phillip said. "From the moment he saw her, there was no coming back. When he would talk about my mum he would just disappear into his own world, then stop mid-sentence, and you'd have to prompt him to talk again."

Over the years, the couple took in numerous people living in difficult circumstances, including a young woman who became like an adopted daughter. They gave them food, sometimes a home and "a go".

"Mum just always happened to stumble across these people. Dad would say, 'grab their shit, tell them to come in'. I remember he picked up stuff from their houses for them. He had confrontations with [relatives] who were nasty and rough.

"He'd say, 'don't fight unless it's for something right. Something that was honourable."

"My granddad was the same - respect and morals."

In 2014 interview, Mark told the South Coast Register his Clydesdales were "gentle giants"

"There's something about a newborn. It's something you can't put in words," he said.

In a later interview he issued an open invitation for curious passers-by to come into the property and pat the horses rather than reach out from the road as it was "a bit of a dangerous spot to pull over". He said kindness was the key to his success with the Clydesdales.

"Break them in with kindness and handle them as foals," he said.

He ran a trucking business and later his own civil construction company - Cambewarra Backhoes - in the 1980s and 90s.

His son described him as "self-taught and very old school" with his building and repair skills.

"He took what my grandfather gave him and made it his own. Everything I know today came from my dad. Up until literally this happened I was ringing him up for advice. Who do I ring now?".

Tahlia Spackman described her father-in law as "incredible" and "larger than life"

"He was the kind of person that, if you'd broken down and you were stuck on the side of the road at two in the morning you could call on him and he would come and pick you up. He was always there for you. He would go out of his way to help."

"It still feels like we're going to go to the farm and see him working on his mowers, working on his machines.

"He was getting into retirement. He was working less and less and just taking time for himself. He and Rhonda were going to go traveling at the end of this year. They were finally going to go travelling and it's just never going to happen now."

Witnesses to the aftermath of the crash said the Suzuki driver was visibly shocked and tearful. Passers-by comforted her as she sat on the roadside.

Several neighbours told the Mercury they pitied the girl as well as the deceased man's grieving family.

"She's young. She's on her red Ps," said one. "If that was me I'd never want to drive again. To think about the psychological impact on her - it's really sad. No one should be going through that."

"I feel really sorry for the driver too," said another. "She's only a young girl. I don't know if it's her fault but even if it is, the fact that the man died, it's really - oh, no."

The crash has hastened the younger Spackmans' plans to sell their home. They were waiting to see what the housing market would bring but say they now don't care what it costs them to move from the sight they can't bear to look at. They intend to move south, to help Rhonda run the family farm.

The Crash Investigation Unit is probing the circumstances surrounding the crash.

Meantime, Lake Illawarra Police District's Sergeant Peter Northey said the tragedy was a reminder for drivers to pay attention.

"We just ask drivers to be vigilant on the road, be conscious and aware of their surroundings at all times. Drive in accordance with the road conditions that you're faced with at the time," he said.