A friend and i headed off to the local mall in the pouring rain yesterday evening with the intention of doing some last minute Christmas shopping.
As we drove along headed towards a roundabout we noticed a gold coloured ford exiting rather quickly on the other side of the road, suddenly the car skidded on the wet surface and then the back tyres slid out before completely losing control .
I watched the scene in apparent slow motion as the car spun off the road, became momentarily air-born and clipped a tree seemingly tearing the whole left hand side panels, windows and doors from its body, a huge branch from the tree fell crashing onto its roof as it disappeared down the embankment and out of sight.
Oh my god!
I grabbed my bag fumbling for the phone and calling 000, a monotone voice picked up and enquired calmly, “police, fire or ambulance?” um.. . we hadn’t even come to a full stop yet and the car was totally out of view. “Police” i managed to stammer, and probably an ambulance – hang on i don’t know yet.
We dived out of the car and straight down the muddy embankment to the remains of the gold ford, a young bloke quickly got out, and apart from a few little glass cuts, he looked surprisingly unhurt. He then helped another man from the passenger side, the passenger stumbled awkwardly and fell to the ground before sitting up and looking very shocked “what happened?” he asked.
Thankfully the man didn’t have any obvious injuries apart from a few minor cuts, shock and his wobbly legs, but after i quizzed him about pain in his leg he said he had just recently had an operation which is why he had stumbled.
While we waited for the police and ambulance to arrive the young men had a seemingly heated discussion in a foreign language and the young driver seemed very nervous pacing around and muttering, he was very worried about what his mother would say as it was her car he was driving –
I tried to tell him that she would get over it as long as they were ok that was the important thing. I noticed later that they said to the police that the other bloke was driving so i have a feeling he probably didn’t have a current licence or something...
A fire truck arrived before the police did – i am SURE i didn’t ask for a fire truck in my panic phone call, - but, i suppose it never hurts to get a look at some nice firemen! Plus they checked that the car wasn’t about to explode and gave basic first aid for the men. As they were doing this a tow truck happened by, “someone need a tow?” the bloke asked with a grin on his face that said “ ooh how lucky i am to stumble upon a job like this”.
Both the men were very lucky to escape with just cuts and bruises, unfortunately though, the ford didn’t make it.
After the police took a statement from us and we managed to squeeze the large tarago people mover we were driving out from behind the police car, ambulance, tow truck and fire truck we were free to go and continue our shopping trip. Take #2.