Car crashes into light rail tram at Surry Hills

Firefighters used the “jaws of life” to free a driver whose car crashed into a light rail tram on Thursday afternoon.

A middle-aged man is in a stable condition, after reportedly suffering a medical episode behind the wheel of his car before colliding with a light rail tram.

The incident occurred about 4.30pm out the front of the Shakespeare Hotel on Devonshire Street in Surry Hills.

Witnesses recalled hearing a loud ‘bang’.

A driver had to be cut from his vehicle after it crashed into a tram on Thursday. Picture: Lachlan Leeming

Debris including baskets of washing were left strewn across the road after the collision, with the L2 tram to Randwick damaged, while the car was written off in the smash.

The man had to be removed from the destroyed vehicle with the “jaws of life”, as onlookers flooded the streets around the crash.

Emma Hill, 17, had just finished her boxing class and was waiting for the tram when she saw the car driving downhill on the tram tracks.

“I started filming because I thought he was going to kill himself,” she said.

“He was fanging it.”

Some tram services were suspended after the crash on Thursday afternoon. Picture: Lachlan Leeming

Picture: Lachlan Leeming

Straight after the accident she ran to the scene to try and help, crediting her first aid training for keeping a cool head.

“There was this big bang, like a big clash, I ran straight down and tried to open the passenger door.

“I tried to open his door but it wouldn’t budge. Because of my first aid training I knew not to move him,” she told the telegraph at the scene.

“I was trying to get him to talk to me, I was just asking simple questions like what I’d your name, do you know where you are.”

The Oasis College student said the man was semi-conscious with blood over his face, before fire and rescue services used the jaws of life to cut him free.