A single vehicle accident occurred on Friday afternoon, when a vehicle hit a gum tree adjacent to the road and close to the intersection of Bonnington Road and the Back Creek Road, between Harden and Young. The crash resulted in the small sedan involved bursting into flames under the hood.

     The driver was trapped and assistance was provided by passers by, before emergency services arrived. The fire started in the engine bay before entering the cabin of the car. Two fire extinguishers were on hand and were used to douse the flames, before those on the scene made the decision to pull the injured lady from the wreck, seconds before smoke and flames took over the cabin.

  Fire and rescue NSW Station 513 Young was called to the scene and extinguished the remainder of the fire before undertaking a search of the car to ascertain if there were other passengers involved.

They used equipment to lift the car and cut it open, such was the damage done to the left hand side of the vehicle in the collision.

Young Police confirmed to 513 that the passengers suspected of being in the vehicle were not in the car at the time of the crash and were safe.

The Trip, The Choice and The Miracle.

The day started out as any other normal day for Harden farmers Duncan and Leigh Stewart who were preparing for the upcoming contract windrowing season in the north of NSW.

Leigh and Duncan Stewart who farm at Harden and Contract windrow in NSW.

    The married couple left early in the morning for Rankin Springs, 200 kilometres west of Harden where they were going to pick up a piece of front end machinery for their windrower.

    They stopped in Temora, were they picked up a number of other important pieces of equipment which were crucial to the machinery. They needed to get two fire extinguishers at some stage in the near future and mulled it over, as to whether they would get them in Temora or get them closer to home. They went ahead with the purchase. It was hoped that one would eventually be mounted on the front end of the machinery and the other the back, in case fire broke out while undertaking work in the hot Australian conditions, something that is prone to happen when using heavy machinery in summer.

The decision certainly changed the outcome of events later in the day.

Leigh told the Times, “We are very conscious of always having fire extinguishers on our equipment.”

Duncan is the Kingsvale Fire Captain and Leigh’s father Tony has spent decades in the RFS, they understand the importance of being able to put a fire out quickly.

  Leigh said, “Duncan said will I get them now or back in Young. He thought stuff it we’re here, I can see them on the shelf, I’ll just get them, so he got two fire extinguishers. The biggest ones he could get.”

  Leigh and Duncan had to wait a little while at Rankin Springs as the farmer they were purchasing the machinery off was moving grain around the property, which delayed their return home. They ended up returning through Barmedman, Quandialla, Bimbi and then on to Young. The time delay proved to be crucial.

    Duncan and Leigh were originally going to head back to Harden  through Temora and then Wallendbeen but decided on the northern route as the Wallendbeen underpass wasn’t suitable for their return trip. The Wallendbeen bridge came down at the start of the year and with the single lane temporary replacement bridge yet to be installed, the options on the return trip included a large detour via Coota, or the detour north of Young taken by Duncan and Leigh.

  She said, “It was out of our way but you just can’t do a u-turn with this machinery, we know that way because we go that way with our machinery up north so we went the ‘long way.’ We were supposed to be back for a meeting at 3:00pm. As the day progressed we knew we wouldn’t make it, so we cancelled the meeting, we just ticked along so we would be back before dark.”

   Leigh and Duncan were travelling along the Back Creek Road in between Harden and Young when Duncan said, “Something must be wrong, the horses are running around in the paddock.”

  Leigh said, “We came around the bend and saw a car pulled up and smoke coming  from the car which was wrapped around the tree.”

    3 good samaritans had already arrived at the scene to render assistance and were able to communicate with the driver who was suffering from head injuries and other injuries to the lower half of her body.

As Leigh and Duncan made their way to the car they asked if there was anyone in it and were told “Yes she is trapped and we can’t find the two children.”

   It was at this stage that the purchase in Temora of the two fire extinguishers became so very important. One was immediately used to attend to the fire under the bonnet.

   More cars began to pull up and Duncan was driven by another good Samaritan to get the Kingsvale RFS truck, such was the threat of the blaze.

A bystander asked Leigh did she have another extinguisher. Leigh got the other extinguisher and the attempt to bring the fire under the hood, under control, continued.

   Leigh said, “I tried to find out where the kids were, we could visibly see two car seats but they were empty. I looked down and I could see that the man working on the front of the car couldn’t leave the fire under the hood. It was touch and go.”

Leigh thought they were either going to run out of time or water or extinguishers, and the fire was coming through the cabin. It was inside the radio area and was melting the plastic.

   Leigh and another bystander had no other option but to get the trapped driver out of the car. Only two of the four doors were able to be opened. They ‘manhandled’ the lady out of the vehicle just before Police, Fire and Ambulance arrived on the scene and took over.

Leigh said, “If those fire extinguishers weren’t there at that time, it could have been a very different story.”

“Everyone played their part, what needs to come out of this is that we should all have fire extinguishers in our cars. I want everyone in the world to carry either a fire blanket or an extinguisher. Something that can help in a situation like this. It doesn’t have to be a big fire extinguisher but it can buy you time in a situation like this.”

Hilltops Councillor Matthew Stadtmiller has been campaigning for a road and bridge audit to be undertaken in the Council area for the last 4 years.

He said, “We need to as a community and a Council, take the necessary steps to improve the safety of the roads and bridges we and our loved ones travel on in the area. This accident may have been avoided if this tree had been removed. A large brach has already been cut off, surely the whole tree should go now. There’s little margin for error on many of the back roads. There’s power poles too close to the road or in inappropriate areas and the gradient on some roads has remained the same for generations because we don’t have the funding to drastically overhaul some of these black spots and have them brought up to standard. We can’t fix these roads and push for funding until we have an audit completed which we can take to State and Federal Government for funding.”

It is understood the occupant of the vehicle was airlifted to Canberra. It is unclear what her current condition is.