‘It was like a war zone,’ says crash paramedic

FOR local paramedic, Shannon Charles, operations manager for VEMA, Thursday evening’s horror crash at the bottom of Field’s Hill which killed 27 people, the words ‘war zone’ are all he could use to describe the scene.

“One word comes to mind when I think of that accident scene, war zone. I give my condolences to all the families who had loved ones in those vehicles,” said Charles.

Charles said he was dispatched around 6.10pm on Thursday evening and arrived at the scene some five minutes later. According to Charles, one car was side-swiped by the truck at the top of Field’s Hill, while a further two light motor vehicles were hit near Jameson Terrace. Those affected escaped with minor injuries.

“When we arrived at the scene, I can’t begin to describe what I saw.  It has to be the most graphic scenes the Outer West has experienced in a long time,” said Charles.

Derrick Banks from ER24 was on the first on scene and was the incidence commander for the evening. At one time, we had more patients than ambulances, but it was extremely well  co-ordinated and all the officials at the scene worked well and efficiently together. All of them going beyond the call of duty. We also received a fair amount of help from bystanders,” he said.

Charles was at the scene for two hours, by which time all the injured had been transported to hospital. “A few of the paramedics, after the injured had been seen to, went to help out at the hospitals,” he said.