Emergency services were kept busy on Tuesday evening as road crashes in Durban resulted in two fatalities and two severe injuries. The most devastating incident occurred on the M1 Higginson Highway at around 6:30 PM near Havenside Drive in Chatsworth.
According to Garrith Jamieson from ALS Paramedics, the multi-vehicle crash involved a man in his 50s and a woman in her 30s, both pronounced dead on the scene.
Upon arrival, paramedics encountered two badly damaged vehicles on the highway and another vehicle, a bakkie, that had veered off the road and come to rest on Almond Road below. The Ethekwini Fire Department was summoned due to multiple entrapments.
Unfortunately, the driver of the bakkie sustained major injuries and was declared deceased on-site. Paramedics worked tirelessly to stabilize the critically injured passenger while firefighters used specialized equipment to extricate him from the wreckage before he was rushed to a nearby hospital for further treatment.
In another incident, the driver of a truck was trapped in his vehicle after it caught fire on the N3 highway. By Wednesday morning, the Ethekwini Fire Department had intervened, and one lane of the N3 Pietermaritzburg-bound had been reopened to traffic. Specific details regarding this incident remain limited, but initial reports indicate timely intervention prevented further tragedy.
The third major incident happened around 11:00 PM at the intersection of the M7 and Wakesleigh Road. ALS Paramedics arrived to find a light motor vehicle and a truck had collided, leaving the scene in a state of utter devastation.
The driver of the light motor vehicle, a male in his twenties, was critically entrapped. Advanced life support paramedics stabilized him on-site while the Durban Fire Department’s jaws-of-life were used for his extraction. Once freed, he was rushed to a nearby Durban hospital for urgent care. The passenger in the vehicle also sustained serious injuries and was transported to the hospital for further treatment.
