Cape Town - A man was pulled out of his car shortly before it caught fire on the N1 after it had crashed into a lamp-post.
Gideon Odendaal, believed to be in his late forties, was taken to hospital after he was pulled out of his car by two strangers who happened to be travelling on the freeway at the time.
Good Samaritans Wesley Meyers and Gerhard Conradie ran to Odendaal’s aid on the Tygerberg Hill, just before the M16 Jip de Jager/Mike Pienaar turn-off, shortly before the car burst into flames.
Mayoral committee member for safety and security JP Smith confirmed the driver had survived.
“If it were not for the two men he would likely have died,” he said.
Meyers said he knew something was amiss on the highway when he saw that traffic was heavily backed up.
“My gut told me something was wrong when I saw the heavy traffic and then suddenly I saw the car on fire and I jumped out of my car and left my 2-year-old son sleeping in the car and just ran to help,” said Meyers.
When he got to the car, he noticed the man was semi-conscious.
“As we were moving further and further away from the car it blew up and the fire got bigger. I am just glad that we were there at the time and were able to help him.”
- In a separate incident, a man was killed on Saturday afternoon after his vehicle rolled on the Seven Passes Road on the Garden Route. ER24 spokesman Russel Meiring said paramedics found a motor vehicle lying on its roof in the middle of the road.
“The lifeless body of a man lay a few metres away,” he said.
The man was declared dead on the scene. Four other men in the vehicle escaped without injuries.
Sunday Argus