Driver miraculously survives when a runaway lorry completely crushes her car after crashing over a 10ft embankment in South Africa
- HGV driver had parked on a hill while he went inside his child’s primary school
- It then rolled on to a dual carriageway and crushed a three-door hatchback
- South African Police have opened a case for reckless and negligent driving
A driver has miraculously survived despite a runaway lorry crushing her car after it crashed over an embankment on to a dual carriageway.
The HGV had been parked on a hill while the driver popped inside his child’s primary school in Port Elizabeth, South Africa.
But he found that his lorry was not where he had left it when he came back out.
He then saw that the rear of his vehicle sticking high into the air at the end of the road having fallen nose first at a 45-degree angle over the edge.
It had landed directly on top of a three-door hatchback Opel Adam that appeared to be totally flattened.
It is not clear whether the lorry driver had forgotten to put his handbrake on or whether the handbrake had failed.
A driver miraculously survived despite a runaway lorry crushing her car after it crashed over an embankment on to a dual carriageway
The HGV had been parked on a hill while the driver popped inside his child’s primary school near Port Elizabeth, South Africa, when it rolled off the embankment
Motorists stopped to help but initially assumed that anyone inside the vehicle had been killed.
But rescuers said the woman could be heard alive and that the Fire and Rescue Service used the ‘jaws of life’ hydraulic cutting equipment to reach the badly injured driver.
Paramedics rushed the 26-year-old woman to hospital where she remains in intensive care while she is treated for serious crush injuries.
South African Police have opened a case for reckless and negligent driving with Captain Sandra Janse van Rensurg confirming that nobody was at the wheel of the HGV in the incident.
It had landed directly on top of the three-door hatchback Opel Adam that appeared to be totally flattened
Fire and Rescue Service used the ‘jaws of life’ hydraulic cutting equipment to reach the badly injured female driver in the car before she was then taken to hospital
The accident blocked the dual carriageway for several hours while the runaway HGV was safely pulled back up the embankment
She said: ‘The driver had parked his lorry and gone to fetch his child from a primary school and when he returned to his truck he noticed that it was no longer where he parked it.
‘He then noticed the truck had rolled forward and collided with an Open Adam hatchback that was travelling along a dual carriageway which ran at a right angle to where the lorry was parked’.
The accident happened at 2.50pm on Tuesday and blocked the road for several hours while the rescuers freed the driver and the runaway HGV was safely pulled back up the embankment.