Woman dead after crash

The wreck of the car that crashed on Bargara Road early yesterday.

Scottie Simmonds

A YOUNG woman is dead and another is in a serious condition, after their car crashed and burst into flames on Bargara Road early yesterday morning.

Horrified neighbours heard the Holden Berlina station wagon slam into a tree about 12.30am, and rushed to free the trapped women from the burning vehicle — moments before it became engulfed in flames.

“I tried to get the driver out, but the front door wouldn’t open,” Sandhill Drive man Max Culic said.

“So then my mate, Steve, reached in and undid her seatbelt, and we lifted her out through the window.”

About 10 people worked by torchlight to rescue the women before the car became an inferno.

MR Culic said the car was so damaged that the men did not immediately realise there was a passenger.

“Lance saw (the passenger’s) legs, and said, ‘there’s a woman in the back’, and got her out,” Mr Culic said.

“It was only a matter of seconds before the car went up.”

Mr Culic and his friends helped wrap the conscious 19-year-old driver in blankets, and spoke with her while waiting for emergency services to arrive.

The 20-year-old passenger was breathing but unconscious when she was pulled from the wreckage. She was treated at the scene by an intensive care paramedic from the AGL Action Rescue helicopter, but later died in Bundaberg Hospital.

Mr Culic and his friends Lance, Steve, Zeb and Peter were in shock yesterday.

“It’s lucky we were there to get them out — we just tried to keep (the driver) talking,” Mr Culic said.

“She told me her name, and I told her mine and got her to squeeze my hand. They looked so young.”

Another Sandhill Drive resident, Gary Murr, said the car was already on fire as it halted outside his house.

“I could see a fire under the bonnet, so I grabbed a bucket of water and ran over,” he said.

“It didn’t put the fire out but it slowed it down a little bit, and that gave them enough time to get the girls out.”

He said the rescuers had to remove eskies and camping equipment from the car to get to the trapped women.

“You could hear things blowing up inside the car, it was just a ball of flame,” Mr Murr said.

“I could see a camping stove and camping gear in the back.”

It is believed the Estonian driver and her Swedish passenger were holidaying in the Bargara area.