Hong Kong father killed in New Zealand crash was Standard Chartered executive
Head-on collision involving a logging truck on a New Zealand highway claims the lives of senior bank-executive father, mother and sister
A Hong Kong teenager - the sole survivor of a road accident that killed his entire family in New Zealand - was fighting for his life in hospital last night, as tributes poured in for his mother, older sister and father, a senior executive at Standard Chartered.
Griffin Lee, 18, who is understood to be studying at an international school in Hong Kong, is in a critical condition in Waikato Hospital's intensive care unit.
The teenager's father, Warren, 53, his mother Aesoon, 52, and sister Julia, 20, were killed when their car crashed into a logging truck on State Highway 1, a major artery linking the two main islands of New Zealand.
Police said Julia was driving at about 3.45pm on Tuesday near the North Island town of Tokoroa, about 200km south of Auckland, when the car crossed the centre line for an unknown reason and collided head-on with a truck carrying dozens of logs.
Griffin was in the front passenger seat at the time of the accident, while his parents were believed to be sitting in the back seat. They were not wearing seatbelts, police said.
The family, all US citizens of mixed Korean and Chinese descent, was visiting New Zealand to help relocate Julia - a computer science major at Tufts University in Boston, Massachusetts. She was due to start an overseas study programme in Auckland.
Warren Lee was a senior executive at Standard Chartered. He joined the bank more than 10 years ago. A spokeswoman for Standard Chartered said: "We are deeply saddened by the loss of Warren Lee, who was head of capital markets solutions.