A quick-thinking fisherman has been hailed a hero after he grabbed a fire extinguisher and put out a burning car to save the man inside.
Thanks to the heroic efforts of Simon Jenke and his cousin, the 25-year-old driver was rescued from the wreckage in the South Australian town of Waikerie, 82 kilometers northeast of Adelaide, and airlifted to hospital. Saturday.
Mr Jenke said he was fueling his boat for a family fishing trip on the Murray River when he heard a loud “thud”.
He looked around and saw that a car had crashed into a power pole and was on fire with the driver trapped inside.
Fisherman Simon Jenke (pictured left) ran to get a fire extinguisher at a service station when he saw a man trapped in a burning car.
Jenke grabbed a fire extinguisher from a nearby gas station before he and his cousin ran to help the man.
“My cousin had it and he was pulling his leg out, he was trapped because we didn’t know if the fire would rage again,” Mr Jenke said.
“And when you hear the sirens, you know everything is going to be okay.”
The couple tried to assure the man, whose leg was trapped under the mangled front of the car, that he would be fine.
National Fire Service officer Graeme Ward said Mr Jenke’s intervention was crucial.
“The person at the gas station grabbed the fire extinguisher and ran over here and put out the fire, probably saving his life,” Mr Ward said.
The driver, who was the sole occupant of the vehicle, was transported by the Royal Flying Doctor Service to the Royal Adelaide Hospital, where he was expected to undergo surgery on Saturday night.
It is believed that the man suffered a medical episode that caused the accident.
Through the efforts of Mr Jenke and his cousin, the injured man was extricated from the wrecked vehicle.
Jenke said things could have been much worse.
“If I hadn’t hit that pole I would have gone over a vacant lot and fallen straight over the cliff into the river,” Mr Jenke said.
“I think his name might have been lucky.”