An elderly Victorian couple has been killed in their bedroom when a truck crashed into their home at tower hill, in south-west Victoria. The tipper truck left the road and ploughed 200-metres through a field before crashing into the couple's brick home.
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00:00A quiet morning in southwest Victoria shattered by a violent crash with fatal consequences.
00:10At 7am a tip truck heading from Portferry to Warrnambool veered off the highway near
00:16Tower Hill, careened through a paddock and smashed into the corner of this house, killing
00:22the home's owners in their bedroom.
00:25The damage and the result and the tragic loss of life that comes with having a collision
00:31with a heavy vehicle.
00:33The married couple, 81-year-old Jim Madden and his 80-year-old wife Carmel Madden were
00:38well known in the area.
00:40It's a small town, everyone will be feeling it, they have a lot of relations here.
00:45Local publican and family friend Peter Archibald says he'd known Jim Madden all of his life.
00:51Jim had his 80th birthday here, his wife had her birthday here, they were here last
00:56Friday night for dinner.
00:58The 70-year-old truck driver has minor injuries and was taken to Warrnambool Hospital where
01:03he's helping police with their investigation.
01:06Whether it's a mechanical fault with the truck, whether there's a medical episode involved,
01:10whether it's inattention, whether there's a phone use involved, all of those things
01:14will have to be looked at in the next few days.
01:16Skid marks stretching long and straight through a paddock for about 200 metres show the path
01:22of the truck after it left the highway in a 100 kilometre an hour zone.
01:27I can't say that they haven't washed off any speed during that 200 metres, but clearly
01:32they haven't washed off what you would expect to be all of the speed.
01:36In the meantime, the community is grieving the loss.
01:39It'll be a big hole to fill, a huge hole to fill.