A heroic motorist ripped a car door off its hinges in a desperate bid to save six teenagers trapped inside a mangled car after an horrific crash.
Neville Roser, 67, was first to reach the wreck seconds after the allegedly stolen car ran a red light and smashed into a pole north of Brisbane, on Wednesday.
A shaken Mr Roser on Friday described the ‘sheer adrenaline’ that kicked in as he pulled out three of the four passengers, aged 10 to 16, who were sitting on the back seat before finding Jacob Hopkins, 14, who later died in his arms.
‘I can’t believe I tore the door off, people told me I did it with one hand,’ he said.
‘I’m 67 years old, I’m not superman. It must have been pure adrenaline.’
Neville Roser, 67, (pictured with his daughter Vanessa) was first to reach the mangled wreck seconds after the allegedly stolen car ran a red light and smashed into a pole
Mr Roser was waiting at the traffic lights on Anzac Avenue in Rothwell about 2.50pm on Wednesday and saw the silver Mazda 6 station wagon scream past.
‘It must have been doing well over 100km/h, it was like a giant twisted the car around the pole,’ he told Daily Mail Australia.
The father-of-seven blocked the intersection with his car then ran over to the wreck to look for survivors.
‘There was a girl hanging out the window on the right back door and I knew I had to get her out so I pulled the door off and grabbed her,’ he said.
Mr Roser handed the injured girl to a young man who arrived a few minutes later, then dragged out two more while another rescuer got the fourth.
The mangled wreckage of the horrific crash is pictured on Wednesday afternoon
Jacob Hopkins, 14, was a passenger in the Mazda SUV that police said ran a red light speeding through Rothwell, north of Brisbane, and was killed when it crashed
Three girls aged 10, 14, and 16 were crammed into the along with a 13-year-old boy. Mr Roser said no one in the car was wearing a seatbelt.
The retired musician rallied other motorists who had stopped to help to grab anything they could to staunch the bleeding and keep the victims alive.
He then dived back into the car and after pulling aside an airbag came-face-to-face with the mortally injured Jacob.
‘I could see his brain and there was blood gushing from his ear like a tap. He was moving his eyes and his mouth at me, but he was brain dead, he was gone,’ he said.
‘I knew he’d suffered a massive brain injury and I was never going to be able to save him, so I had to move on.
‘God himself couldn’t have saved that kid. He took the biggest impact of the crash, the pole right to his head.’
Mr Roser went around to driver’s window and saw the 14-year-old boy with his hand and head sticking out a hole in the windscreen.
‘I thought he was dead but he wasn’t. The window was around his neck and I knew if he moved he would cut his throat and bleed to death. I tore the windscreen off with my hands,’ he said.
Six children aged less than 16, including a 10-year-old girl, were crammed into the car and two are still fighting for life in hospital
The father-of-seven blocked the intersection with his car then ran over to the wreck to look for survivors
‘I told him to to look at my eyes and that I wasn’t going to let him die. I said “you’re going to be all right, just listen to me and don’t move”.’
The injured boy said there was someone underneath him, but it turned out of be Jacob’s lower body, who had been flug across the cabin.
Mr Roser said the victims mostly had facial injuries, one with a bad cut to her leg, and the driver had hurt his back but could still feel his legs.
Paramedics arrived and took over, and as the adrenaline faded, feelings of guilt over Jacob’s death started seeping in.
‘People have been calling me a hero, but don’t heroes save people?’ Mr Roser said as he tried to choke back tears.
‘I don’t feel like a hero, I just did what I needed to do. I wanted to save everyone.
‘I was first to the car and I’m glad they listened to me and we stopped them bleeding out, but there were a lot of heroes there.’
Mr Roser said he has tried to talk through the experience with friends and family over the past two days, but was still traumatised and sleepless.
‘It was horrific what I saw, it’s a hard thing to take on. I’ve had a hard time of it, it keeps coming back,’ he said.
‘I really expected to see a lot of dead people in that car, but God-willing there was only one.’
The horror crash in Rothwell in the Moreton Bay region north of Brisbane was one of three fatal crashes in Queensland on Wednesday
This was the third time Mr Roser has been what stood between someone else and death, and said this was the worst of the three.
Last year he rescued a man who was crashed by a caravan and many years ago failed to save a nine-year-old boy who was bitten by a cobra in the Philippines while picking his breakfast.
He said he stole a car and rushed the boy to hospital but it was too late. All he could do was wrap him in a sheet and take him back to his village.
‘I seem to be in the wrong place at the wrong time a lot, or the right place at the right time. I don’t want to go through that again,’ he said.
Mr Roser said Jacob’s family contacted him to say thank you and learn about his last moments.
‘They asked if he was trying to say something before he died but I think though his mouth was moving he was already gone,’ he said.
He said they asked him to go to the funeral but ‘I don’t know if I can because it will be so confronting’. He said he would meet with them but wasn’t sure what to say.
Friends and family mourned the teenager as ‘taken too soon’ on social media in the hours after his death
Mr Roser urged people not to judge the group for allegedly stealing the car and driving it so recklessly as they were so young.
‘It’s a shame [Jacob] lost his life doing a stupid thing but they’re just children. It’s a terrible way to learn a lesson but I pray they all do,’ he said.
‘The kid who was driving, he’s got to live with killing his friend – the charges will be nothing by comparison.’
The driver was charged with dangerous driving causing death, unlawful use of a motor vehicle, unlicenced driving, and running a red light.
The 10-year-old girl also allegedly drove the car at some point and was charged with unlawful use of a motor vehicle.
Police alleged the car was stolen from a shopping centre in nearby Kallangur earlier on Wednesday.
Mr Roser said there was a new-looking set of keys, with other keys on a key chain, in the ignition, but he didn’t know where they came from.
The underage driver allegedly lost control and slammed into an oncoming vehicle before he collided with a set of traffic lights
The driver was in a stable condition at Brisbane Children’s Hospital, along with the passengers who were also stable.
The occupants of the other car involved in the crash, a woman, 26, and four young children, escaped serious injury.
On social media, Jacob declared himself part of the North Side Gang, in the neighbouring suburb of Redcliffe, and posed in numerous photos stamped with the group’s name.
Friends and family mourned the teenager as ‘taken too soon’ on social media in the hours after his death.
‘I can’t believe it’s real. All the s**t you got up to, you didn’t deserve this. Always been that second family for you no matter what, we love you and only wanted the best for you,’ a close friend said.
Another friend said Jacob was the ‘strongest boy she knew’.
‘Fly in the Dream Time, forever our memories are now stories. We love you mate we will never forget you,’ they said.
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