Durban - A heavily pregnant woman who was pinned beneath a large tipper truck was freed after a rescue operation lasting 90 minutes on Tuesday.
ER24 spokesperson Russel Meiring said the accident happened on a rural road in the Nhlazatshe area near Edendale in Pietermaritzburg.
“We found a large tipper truck lying on its side in the middle of the road. The cargo of sand had been spilled across the road. A female patient was lying trapped, from the waist down, beneath the cab of the vehicle,” said Meiring.
The woman was transported to Edendale Hospital for further medical treatment. While she sustained severe injuries to both of her legs, both mother and baby were stable, paramedics said.
Her name has not been released.
This was the second such incident in the province in as many days.
On Monday, a man who was hit by a truck and pinned beneath it for nearly two hours was rescued in Durban. Security guard Khangelani Skhonje, 34, who emerged from the ordeal with a bruised knee, told News24 that he had been walking to work when a truck rode over him.
He said it was the thoughts of his one-year-old son in the Eastern Cape that kept him alive.