Because of the remote location and a flooded bridge en-route to the scene, it took paramedics almost an hour to reach the place where the cargo truck overturned.

They discovered a frantic man, with one of his foot soles missing, next to a crumpled truck cabin where his wife Eliza Lehong (31) and their three year-old son Adriaan Mngomezulu was trapped underneath.

The boy’s arm was the only thing sticking out of the mangled metal.

A Life 24 paramedic, Carl Blake, managed to calm the boy, speaking to him whilst slowly digging him out from underneath the wreck. It took him more than 90 minutes to free the boy.

It took a further four hours to free his mother, whose body went into shock after numerous attempts to unpin her from underneath the wreck was unsuccessful.

She too was eventually freed by painstakingly digging into the soil underneath her.

All three members of the family was taken to hospital for treatment. Mr. Blake was praised for his heroic act in freeing mother and child from an almost certain death.

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