A devoted mother was struck and killed by her own van after she left the vehicle in drive with the handbrake off and it rolled backwards on a driveway.

Krasimira Kraleva, also known as Krassy, was 52 when she died in October 2020 while out on a job.

At a Coroner’s inquest into her death today, her husband Svetlozar Kralev asked witnesses how the fully loaded van could have rolled backwards into his wife without her noticing it was moving.

“I know that van very well,” he said in the Auckland District Court this morning.

Kraleva, a curtain maker and style consultant for Russells Curtains and Blinds, had arranged to meet with a client, David Lu, at his house in West Auckland on October 15, 2020.

Lu told the inquest he was inside the house talking with property agent Gavin Han that afternoon when they heard a scream and then a loud crash.

When they looked outside, they saw a van had crashed into a fence.

Before it hit the fence, the van had collided with an SUV, the inquest heard.

Han went out first and very quickly, Lu heard him yelling, “Oh my god, oh my god.”

Lu came out and saw a woman under the crashed van.

From the writing on the van, he realised the woman was Krassy, the curtain maker he had spoken to over the phone and arranged to meet that day.

Han immediately called the ambulance but when they arrived, Krassy could not be saved.

Senior constable Gary Abbott, the crash investigator who arrived at the scene shortly after the incident, told the inquest Kraleva was found with the van’s key next to her on the ground.

From the evidence, he said, she left the van in drive and the handbrake off, removed the key from the ignition, and walked to the back of the vehicle.

“As she’s walking down the van, she didn’t realise the van started to roll and it hit her,” Abott said, describing what was likely to have happened.

He said scuffing on the driveway surface showed she had made contact with the van about one to two metres from where she was found.

An inspection of the vehicle after the crash showed there was no fault with the parking brake. “If you engaged it, it stayed on,” Abbott said.

He said it was not clear where she had parked on the driveway, which was sloping but nearly flat in one area.

The van can run backwards even in drive gear because the handbrake was not engaged, he said. “The only way to stop the vehicle is put it in park.”

Svetlovar asked how the heavy van could have rolled without his wife noticing it, or stayed stationary on the sloping ground until it moved to hit her.

Abott said it was possible that the vehicle moved slowly at first before picking up speed as it rolled backwards.

Kraleva is survived by her two children and Svetlozar.

Coroner Alison Mills acknowledged the difficulty of the proceedings for Svetlovar and thanked him for representing his family at the inquest.

“The death of your wife was a significant thing for you and your children,” she said, before reserving her findings.

Shortly after her death, Kraleva’s employer Bill Liddell told the Herald she was a “beautiful person” who was loved by the whole team.

In a family notice published in the Herald, her loved ones paid tribute to the “devoted mother”.