Teen cut from car 24 hours after horror crash at Murrays Beach
A 17-year-old has survived an agonising 24 hours trapped in a crumpled car with a bone sticking out of his leg — and was only found after his distraught family hired a helicopter.
NSW
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A 17-year-old has survived an agonising 24 hours trapped in a crumpled car with a bone sticking out of his leg and was only found after his distraught family hired a helicopter.
The youth was driving north on the Pacific Hwy at Murrays Beach, south of Newcastle, when his small SUV left the road and slammed into an embankment some time on Sunday morning.
He was trapped in the driver’s seat with a compound fracture to his right femur and fractures to his ankle and arm.
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His family became concerned when he did not arrive at his friends’ house.
“He was reported missing by his family who instigated a search including hiring a private helicopter to look for him,” NSW Ambulance superintendent Jeff Atkins said.
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At 10.45am Monday his family’s aerial search made a breakthrough, spotting the wreckage by the side of the highway.
Four ambulance crews and additional fire crews rushed to the scene for a painstaking, 45 minute operation to free him from the vehicle, which had travelled 50 metres off the road.
“When we got to him he was pretty dehydrated. But his clinical observations were quite good which was amazing,” Superintendent Atkins said.
“He then had to be carried back to the highway.”
The young man, from the local area, was given a large dose of pain medication while the roof and doors of the vehicle had to be cut off.
He was taken to John Hunter Hospital by road ambulance.
Supt Atkins said the young man faced a “world of physio” and procedures to regain the use of his damaged leg.