Two young men hurt in after-midnight crash

Two young men were hurt when they crashed, probably at high speed, into a robot on the intersection of Hill and Beaufort streets last night shortly after midnight.

Critter writers sitting round their kitchen table drinking and chatting heard a mighty bash and went out to find the men trapped in a small bakkie which had been driving down Beaufort Street heading eastwards.

A young woman resident of a block of flats on the corner, who was wearing a pink dressing gown, said she heard a long screech of tyres. She called the emergency authorities.

The young men, one still wearing his Rasta beanie, were trapped inside.

The vehicle was up against a tree, its engine conked in and the windscreen which was smashed inwards, lying in a twisted shattered mess across the men.

Fiona Gordon, a theatre support facilitator who facilitated discussion after the Animal Farm premier this afternoon, was one of the first on the scene.

So was first-aider, Critter writer and drama teacher Sheena Stannard, and these festival women provided comfort for the men who were groaning and calling for help.

As bystander men tried to prise the doors open, a member of the public grabbed a full set of robots which had been lopped off in the accident.

Holding them at waist height, he cleverly used the still-switching lights to illuminate the bakkie cabin helping first-responding members of the public to assess the situation.

Hi-Tech guards were first on the scene, followed by the emergency medical services and police.

One youth, the only person spotted by Critter writers at the scene moments after the bash was heard, later turned out to be a third passenger but said he had been on the back of the open bakkie.

He suffered no major injuries but was disorientated. He could not say what happened to him during the crash or how he managed to escape mostly unscathed.

Stannard leaned far into the passenger side window to check consciousness.

The driver was unconscious and slumped over the wheel, but later revived.

She checked if they were breathing, and asked the conscious passenger if he could feel his feet and he said “My feet are fine, but my arms, my arms.”

The passenger appeared to have more serious injuries to his upper left arm, and also kept saying he could not feel his arms.

He pleaded to be taken to hospital.

Both men’s faces were bloodied.

About six emergency services and police vehicles filled the corner.

Stannard, who was calling: “You are going to be OK darling!” was asked to step back.

“In some sort of pretentious, wankerish, healing sort of thing, I wanted to comfort them and reassure them that they were still alive. I thought the driver was dead. He was slumped over the wheel.”

Another resident brought a blanket from his home and covered the men as that sat trapped. It was very cold.

The passenger door was opened using the jaws of life, and the injured passenger was strapped into a rescue board and onto a stretcher.

The driver wiggled his way across the seat and out the mangled door and was treated and stretchered away.

Please drive carefully everyone!