It was like a movie.

This is how survivors of Monday’s massive accident which claimed six lives and left 78 people with injuries ranging from critical to minor on the N3, described the scene. The crash involved 41 cars.

Ayavuya Mankunzi (30), whose cousin Athini Langa (27) died in the accident, told The Witness that they were travelling from the Eastern Cape and returning to Johannesburg after spending the Easter holidays.

He says five of them, including two children aged three years and three months old, were travelling in a Ford Fiesta.

He says everything was going well until they passed a bend near Hilton on the N3 and got caught in heavy mist.

He adds they slowed down and moved into the middle lane because there were trucks in the slow lane.

“As we continued to drive slowly with our headlights on, we saw a man who was trying to wave cars down.

“We thought he was hitchhiking on the highway and we ignored him. A couple of metres after we passed him we saw this huge accident. The first thing we saw was a truck and a taxi that had already collided, and they were on the side of the road in the fast lane and there was a tanker [truck] on the side at the yellow line,” he says.

Mankunzi says they slowed down and stopped on the side of the yellow line where the tanker was. He adds that cars that were following him also managed to stop in time.

“We got out of the car and we ran back to assist the man who was trying to signal the cars to slow down. As we were busy doing that, one tanker sped past me, taxis followed and other cars just came flying past us.”

“I ran back towards my car to try and tell my family that they must get out of the car. That is when we started hearing crashes and big bangs. In the mid of the chaos, what had happened is that my cousin had tried to get out of the car and I think she tried to get my three-year-old son out with her.”

He says after that he heard a loud bang and the tanker crashed into his cousin, killing her instantly.

He adds that more cars then crashed into each other.

“I jumped off the barrier because I saw people running and I assumed that my family was there, but the only person I saw was my mother. I asked her where everyone was and she kept asking me the same thing.

“I ran back and started calling them. Eventually I heard my son crying, saying ‘daddy’. I ran towards him and called my mother. I also noticed that my aunt and the three-month-old baby were trapped in the car,” he says, adding that they had to break a car window to save the child and his aunt.

The three-year-old child was injured and admitted to Grey’s Hospital while Mankunzi spent the night at the Hilton Hall.

Another survivor, Thami Hlongwane says he was in a taxi from the Masukwana taxi rank and was going to Howick.

He says when they reached the accident scene everyone got out of the taxi to avoid getting injured. “We went and watched from a distance. It was like a movie.”