Crash leads to call for parents to buckle up children

Paramedics are pleading with parents to ensure their children and passengers buckle up, following a head on crash in Warner Beach this afternoon in which a six-year-old and a two-year-old were seriously hurt.

The children travelling home after school were among five people injured in a head-on collision between two cars at the corner of Hawthorne and Kingsway roads.

Netcare 911 responded at about 12.50pm and found all the injured at the roadside. Some were being assisted by members of the public.

The cause of the crash will be investigated, however unconfirmed reports from the scene suggest that a third car had skipped the Hawthorne Road stop street and turned into Kingsway, which led to the two cars swerving and striking one another head-on. The damaged windscreens of both cars suggest that the passengers in both were unrestrained.

“Accident victims may sustain spinal injuries which could be further detrimented if the patient is moved without being properly immobilised first”

The older child sustained major facial lacerations and suspected spinal injuries, while the younger child was heavily concussed. The injured adults sustained multiple injuries and all five were transported to hospital by ambulances.

Another concern that paramedics expressed was for concerned members of the public not to move or pick up anyone who has been involved in an accident, unless their lives are in danger. “Accident victims may sustain spinal injuries which could be further detrimented if the patient is moved without being properly immobilised first,” said Netcare 911’s Chris Botha.

This latest crash followed the fatal crash on Twini Hill earlier this week in which a 12-year-old boy died. On Tuesday, 12 January at about 9.30pm, Netcare 911 paramedics were summoned to assist after a vehicle had overturned on the N2 south on Umbogintwini Hill.

While the 12–year-old was believed to have been sitting in the passenger seat, his body was found lying in the roadway near the wreckage. He had succumbed to his injuries before their arrival.

Click here to read: Boy (12) dies in Twini Hill crash