Five children under the age of 13 are being treated in hospital following a horror road smash near Matamata.
It happened shortly before midnight on Monday and witnesses say they are surprised any of them survived.
The crushed Nissan Tiida was left flipped upside-down on the side of the road with its roof almost caved in.
Inside the car, just minutes earlier were five children between the ages of 10 and 13. All but one were thrown from the vehicle and found nearby in a ditch.
Katelyn Beale witnessed the crash from her house and was the first to arrive on the scene.
"We just hear a big bang and looked over and saw a car rolling so that was pretty scary," she says.
"I heard a little boy crying for help... we could hear moaning and groaning from all of them, I think they were just in and out."
The first person she came across was an 11-year-old boy and waited with him until emergency services arrived.
"He had a big gash on his head and a broken ankle... it was quite overwhelming and just waiting for police to arrive and it was all hectic," Beale says.
Witnesses say the car was speeding when it lost control, flipped several times and travelled a couple of hundred metres before it landed in the ditch on the side of Morrinsville-Walton Rd.
"The car was totalled. The front where the motor is all smashed in, the roof was nearly caved in, there was no more of the boot - it's all gone, it's horrible," Beale says.
Amy Scott was with Beale at the time and waited with one of the boys near the wreckage.
"He was very quiet, he was on and off. Then the cop turned up and the cop knew who it was," she says.
Newshub understands the children were involved in a burglary at a vape store in Matamata shortly before the accident.
Police say the car had been stolen from Hamilton. Now it's in pieces, along with the shattered lives of five children.
