Chipping Norton: Women trapped in high-speed car crash
When rescuers were called out to a high-speed crash, an horrific scene greeted them — a car torn apart, sitting on a gas main at the base of a power pole, with two women trapped inside. Read the extraordinary story.
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With a new day just hours away, the stillness of a May night was cracked open as sirens screamed down a southwest Sydney road towards the site of an horrific crash.
Two young women had become trapped after their car slammed into a power pole at high speed in Chipping Norton where, within minutes, a large-scale emergency response had taken over.
It was just after 9pm on May 13, 2018, and the scene on Newbridge Rd was shocking.
“When the crews arrived on scene it was nothing like the information that the firefighters had been given. It was a very severe crash,” Fire and Rescue duty commander Inspector Kernin Lambert, who helped manage the incident response, said.
Partially torn in half, partially on its roof, partially wrapped around the power pole — the car was completely unrecognisable.
And inside lay two women, fighting for life, unable to escape from the carnage.
“Both (were) alive and this was going to be a very complex and difficult rescue, it was pretty obvious from the start,” Insp Lambert said.
Not only had the car hit a power pole, potentially making powerlines overhead unstable, the damaged vehicle had also landed on top of a gas main.
Insp Lambert said there were hazards at every rescue scene, but this one posed a particular challenge for firefighters.
“The fuel systems — we know they’re going to be damaged. The fuel tank, the fuel line, everything associated with that is going to be damaged. And the risk is that either leaking fuel or fuel under pressure is going to come into contact with a hot part of the car … and that could ignite. And once that ignites that’s going to burn very, very quickly and that’s going to create a very intense fire.”
With so many factors to consider, emergency responders worked “at enormous risk to their personal safety”, he said.
Firefighters crawled underneath the vehicle and, using hydraulic cutting and spreading tools, worked meticulously and cautiously to free the driver and her passenger.
Insp Lambert said his colleague captured it best after the operation; the whole process is much like peeling an onion, exposing one layer at a time to see what lies beneath.
“If we go too quickly we can cause serious problems for the patient. If we go too slowly then we might not get them out in time, so it’s a balancing act.”
He praised the extraordinary efforts of medics at the scene, who worked alongside the firefighters to keep the patients alive.
When eventually they were freed, the sense of relief among those at the scene was palpable.
“This was a miracle that happened at Chipping Norton,” Insp Lambert said.
“There’s an enormous sense of relief, I think. That’s probably the biggest thing because it’s very tense at the beginning and throughout the whole rescue.
“You don’t ever notice it at the time, but people are concentrating … with enormous intensity and focus.”
After being trapped for three hours, the two women were on their way to hospital, where they would eventually make a recovery.
Insp Lambert said there would have been two fewer people in the world if firefighters hadn’t come along that day.
“I am completely in admiration of our firefighters because they know this is a scenario that can happen and with eyes wide open this is the stuff they’re dealing with.
“It really does take special people to do that job.”