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According to STUFF a husband is demanding answers as to how his wife was hit by her own van and killed on a West Auckland street.
Krasimira Kraleva, known to her friends and family as Krassy, was working for a curtain and blind company and visiting the home of a client in Massey when she was run over by her van and killed.
On Monday, her husband Svet Kralev asked questions of witnesses and police during a Coroner’s inquest into his wife’s death at the Auckland District Court.
Real estate agent Gavin Han was with buyers doing the final inspection of a house in Donovan Ave on October 14, 2020 when he saw Krasimira Kraleva’s head over the fence of the driveway.
A short time later he heard a scream and what sounded like a scraping noise.
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Han saw the van rolling down the driveway and ran to offer help. The van scraped against a car parked on the driveway before going over the kerb, crossing Donovan Ave and crashing into a fence.
Han found Kraleva’s body under the van and he called 111.
“I was also asking her if she was OK, but there was no response.”
Viet Anh Lu, the buyer of the home, also heard the scream, followed by the crash.
“I saw an Asian male run out of the house saying: ‘Oh my God, oh my God.’”
Kraleva, a 52-year-old mother of two teenagers, died of blunt force trauma.
Senior constable Gary Abbott said he arrived less than an hour after the crash. He found the handbrake in the van was off and the van was in gear. The van keys were on a hook on Kraleva’s belt.
Kralev asked Abbott if anyone could have been in the van before the senior officer arrived.
“No one enters the car. It’s my scene. If anyone touches anything, I start yelling and screaming,” Abbott said.
The van was tested by an expert who found the handbrake had “30% efficiency”. A handbrake with just 20% efficiency was still operational, he said.
He said the handbrake had been checked and it did not disengage.
“If you put it on, it’s not like it has popped off.”
The driveway was on a slope in parts. Kralev asked how his wife could walk the length of the van and be standing behind it without noticing it was moving.
Abbott said he believed she had been hit by the van as she made her way down the driveway. He pointed to “scuffing” on the driveway and estimated she was hit within one or two metres of the area.
Coroner Alison Mills reserved her decision.
Outside the inquest, Kralev said he still needed answers for himself and his children.
“It’s easy for the police to blame the dead person because she’s not here.”
He said his theory was his wife did apply the handbrake, but it failed and popped up when the van hit the car on the side of the driveway, or possibly the kerb.