Car crashes in lion territory

Armed cops called as rescuers tend victim

IT IS bad enough being injured and incapacitated in a car accident – but you certainly do not want to have wild animals around at the same time. While ambulance crews in the Eastern Cape are often exposed to dangerous situations – having to dodge bullets or armed robbers – they experienced a first this festive season when they had to be guarded against lions while helping a patient who had been involved in a crash.

Cradock police had to be called in last week to guard an accident victim – Johanna Barnard, 51, from Bloemfontein – along with the emergency crews who rushed to the scene after a vehicle rolled into a camp full of wild animals on a farm on the N10.

Eastern Cape health spokesman Sizwe Kupelo said the incident had happened on December 28 when an ambulance crew were on their way from another accident and received the fresh call just before 7pm.

“The accident happened on the Middelburg side of the N10. The vehicle broke two fences and there were wild animals in the camp where it landed,” he said. Kupelo said they were informed that there were lions, bush pigs and wildebeest present in the camp.

The police were already on the scene when the ambulance crew arrived and stood guard with R5 rifles to protect the emergency workers and the patient from the animals.

Kupelo said the patient had only suffered lacerations to both arms and was treated on the scene.

“Luckily the animals stayed away. They never came close to the vehicle or the EMS crew,” Kupelo said.

Captain Laraine Jonker, of the Cradock police, said eight members of the Community Service Centre, the highway patrol and the K9 unit had been dispatched to the scene.

“The vehicle – a white RAV4 – crashed through a fence and landed on its side at a second electrified fence,” she said.

“The owner of the farm was contacted to disarm the electrified fence and in the presence of two rangers the vehicle was cleared from the accident scene.”

‘ There were wild animals in the camp where it [the car] landed – Sizwe Kupelo