A critically injured man has managed to survive for almost 12 hours entrapped in his VW Golf which crashed off the N3, down an embankment, in Peacevale last night.
It is believed that the accident happened at around 23h00 last night but paramedic and rescue services were only notified of the incident at around 10am this morning. A woman was allegedly in the car at the time, the relationship to the driver is at this stage unknown, but she managed to climb from the wreckage, with only minor scrapes and bruises, and walked to the nearest police station to call for help. ER24 paramedics on the scene said that the nearest location to call for help must be almost 10km from where the scene happened.
When Fire and Rescue services arrived at the scene, the fourty year old man was sitting, trapped by is legs in the driver’s seat, and although he had severe breaks to both his legs, he was alert and orientated and told his rescuers what had happened and how long he had been waiting for help to arrive. They struggled for almost 90 minutes to free him and get him up the 20 meter embankment to there the ambulance was waiting.
Paramedics stabilised his broken limbs, gave him pain medication and transported him to Albert Luthuli Central Hospital in Durban.
The actual cause of the accident will need to be investigated, and it is not clear what became of the woman after she notified the emergency services of this incident.
Vanessa Jackson
ER24