A Good Samaritan is still traumatised after rescuing an injured six-year-old girl from the wreck of a horrific traffic accident on the N14 that left her mother dead.
Kyle Potgieter said the little girl suffered such dire head injuries, that it was impossible to tell that her hair was blonde. She was trapped underneath her father’s overturned vehicle.
Potgieter was driving on the N14 outside Pretoria on Wednesday afternoon when he noticed a man driving very fast down the road.
“He was flying and I remember thinking that he was going to hit someone. Moments later, he drove into the back of the trailer of a Hilux bakkie,” Potgieter said on Thursday.
“I pulled over to assist the family in the Hilux. With the help of three other men, we flipped the Hilux onto its side to free the little girl, who at that time, had been trapped between the vehicle and the road.”
Rekord previously reported that the little girl had suffered such serious injuries that she had to be airlifted to hospital.
Emer-G-Med spokesperson Braam Kruger said the girl’s mother was killed in the crash. Her husband and seven-year-old boy suffered moderate injuries.
“Paramedics arrived on scene and found that tragically, one lady had succumbed due to the severity of her injuries,” he said.
A relative of the family, Shandre van Dyk, said on Thursday there were no new developments.
Potgieter declined to give personal information about any of the accident victims, saying the accident left him so traumatised that he could not sleep that night.
He said the man who drove into the Hilux was not hurt.
“He kept trying to get away from everyone. When the Tshwane metro police arrived, he was arrested for hijacking as the vehicle he was driving was reported stolen earlier.”
Potgieter said he was shocked by the fact that many vehicles stopped to take pictures and videos of the accident, but made no attempt to help.
“I would like to commend the efforts of Saartjie Ysel, a surgical technician, who stopped to assist us. I do believe that if it wasn’t for her efforts, the girl would have died,” said Potgieter.
“I would like to commend the efforts of the men who helped me flip the Hilux, especially George, without whom we would not have been able to help the victims.”
Also read:
Mom killed and child critical after N14 horror crash
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