Specialized rescue after bakkie plunges into river near Tongaat
Emergency services have performed an intricate rescue operation to reach a motorist who crashed through the barriers of a bridge outside Maidstone near Tongaat on the north coast.
The man sustained critical injuries when the bakkie he had been driving plunged about 30-metres into a river at about 6: 45am.
IPSS Medical Rescue's Paul Herbst says moments before the van collided with another vehicle on the R102.
"Our rescue team was dispatched together with SAPS K9 Search and Rescue. Paramedics had to be lowered down to treat the patient. He required advance life support intervention.
"He was then placed in a specialised rescue basket to bring the patient back up to the bridge where advance life support medics carried on treating him and took him to hospital," he said.
Herbst says it took about two and a half hours to rescue the man, using a tripod system with specialised hauling equipment, trauma boards and basket stretchers.
"We then put the patient in there and secured him. The paramedics placed the hooks on the main line next to the patient and carried on treating him, stabilising him while he gets hauled up by the guys at top. Obviously, any rescue like this does have its risks with that being said, it was in the best interest of the patient," he said.
Nobody else was hurt in the crash.
(Photos: IPSS Medical Rescue)