FJ Holden Vs Morris Mini Minor

I went and visited some friends (who I haven't seen for quite a while)
and they introduced me to their new dog, Polly and this reminded me
of a incident that happened many years ago.
I reminded Rosemary of a Mini Minor (which she called Polly) and I
was taking her down to the Gold Coast for her birthday.
We were going to have a meal then go see a live show.
I arrived at Rosemary's place about 4pm and we discussed which car
we were going to take. She wanted to take her Mini for a run

The Morris Mini Minor

and I suggested my FJ Holden. This was the first car I had ever owned.

The FJ Holden

As it turned out we decided on my car and it was a good thing we did.
It takes about an hour to drive down to the coast. Once at the coast I
decided to take the more picturesque route besides the Southport
beach front. There were a lot of cars parked along the beach side of the
road, when suddenly a young girl of 7 just ran out in front of my car.
I was only about 6 feet in front of her and I slammed on the brakes.
I knew there was no way I could stop in time, as she was just too close
to me. When the car hit her she was dead (I know a bad choice of words)
centre of the vehicle (which as it turned out was a good thing). She was
knocked straight down and I watched in horror as she disappeared under
the front of the car. I saw her emerge from the rear of the car through the
rear vision mirror as the car stopped. Fortunately the car behind me was
far enough back that they were able to stop in time.
Jumping out of the car we ran over to the girl who was covered in blood,
crying and going into shock. We reached her the same time as her mother
also ran to her side. The person in the car behind us was a off duty policeman
and he called the ambulance.
Now if we had taken the Mini it proberly would of been a different ending.
The Mini had a much lower ground clearence than the FJ Holden. The Mini
would of gone up and over the young girl and maybe crushed her. The FJ
had a much higher ground clearance and by chance striking her "dead"
centre she was knocked down and fell in a straight line. All the wheels missed
her. The height of the car was just enough that she could of had less damage
except for the lower sump box that hit her. In record time the ambulance
arrived and took her to hospital. While waiting for the ambulance the girl's
mother said "that she always did this, got out of the car and and ran between
parked cars to get to the other side....so maybe this would teach her a lesson."
At the time I thought this was a bit of a callous thing to say of your daughter.
The off duty policeman said that he saw the whole incident and that I was not
at fault as there was nothing I could do to avoid what happened. Thinking
what he said later I was glad he was a reliable witness as I later found out that
the girl's father was a fairly well known lawyer on the coast and if I had of
been at fault he would of been able to "throw the book at me."
We took names and phone number and after the ambulance left we drove to
the nearest hotel were I had a "stiff" drink to settle my nerves. That evening
I rang the mother and was told the blood was mainly superficial, she had a
broken arm and broken collar bone, but was resting comfortably and was
expected to make a full recovery.
We finally went and have a nice meal, saw the show and the next morning
there was a small piece in the local paper reporting the accident.
I rang the mother a couple of weeks later and was told the little girl was
mending well. It just goes to show that if we had decided not to take the
FJ Holden perhaps the ending could of turned out much more serious (mind
you not that this was not serious enough).
'Tis amazing what one word, in this case "Polly" can do to bring back
memories of a long forgotten incident.