{"id":1465,"date":"2016-07-08T01:51:54","date_gmt":"2016-07-07T23:51:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thecritter.co.za\/?p=1465"},"modified":"2016-07-08T01:51:54","modified_gmt":"2016-07-07T23:51:54","slug":"two-young-men-hurt-in-after-midnight-crash","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thecritter.co.za\/?p=1465","title":{"rendered":"Two young men hurt in after-midnight crash"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"car<\/a>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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

The young men, one still wearing his Rasta beanie, were trapped inside.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Fiona Gordon, a theatre support facilitator who facilitated discussion after the Animal Farm<\/em> premier this afternoon, was one of the first on the scene.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Hi-Tech guards were first on the scene, followed by the emergency medical services and police.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Stannard leaned far into the passenger side window to check consciousness.<\/p>\n

The driver was unconscious and slumped over the wheel, but later revived.<\/p>\n

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.”<\/p>\n

The passenger appeared to have more serious injuries to his upper left arm, and also kept saying he could not feel his arms.<\/p>\n

He pleaded to be taken to hospital.<\/p>\n

Both men’s faces were bloodied.<\/p>\n

About six emergency services and police vehicles filled the corner.<\/p>\n

Stannard, who was calling: “You are going to be OK darling!” was asked to step back.<\/p>\n

“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.”<\/p>\n

Another resident brought a blanket from his home and covered the men as that sat trapped. It was very cold.<\/p>\n

The passenger door was opened using the jaws of life, and the injured passenger was strapped into a rescue board and onto a stretcher.<\/p>\n

The driver wiggled his way across the seat and out the mangled door and was treated and stretchered away.<\/p>\n

Please drive carefully everyone!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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 … Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1471,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false},"categories":[8],"tags":[185],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecritter.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1465"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecritter.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecritter.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecritter.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecritter.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1465"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thecritter.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1465\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecritter.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1471"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecritter.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1465"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecritter.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1465"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecritter.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1465"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}