Popular radio presenter Simon Barnett has been praised for his heroic actions after he pulled an injured woman free from her vehicle following major crash.
The More FM host was travelling between Rotorua and Taupo when an eight-seater van slammed into the side of a car that pulled a sudden U-turn in a 100km/hour zone.
Simon and his family were directly behind the cars when the accident happened and had to carefully avoid the crash.
“It’s a moment of shear, blind, unadulterated panic,” Simon told listeners to his Si and Gary More FM breakfast radio show.
“The sound of it is ghastly. I just screamed.”
After pulling his own car over, Simon raced to the scene to help, but he said the impact was so sever he was “convinced there would be fatalities”.
“My heart is in my mouth as I get out of the car.
“I was in panic mode, thinking ‘what the heck do I do?’ And then I hear the screaming.”
The first thing the father of four remembers seeing was two children’s car seats in the back of the crashed car, then he found the woman driver who was trapped in the vehicle.
‘I was worried the car was going to burst into flames,” Simon remembered. “The smell of burning was palpable.”
“I jumped into the car – I cut my fingers on the glass – and with all the strength I could muster, I pulled the seat belt.”
He said the seat belt was stuck, and he had to race to a nearby campervan to get a knife and cut the driver free.
The police later told the Dancing With The Stars champion it was a miracle no one was killed in the accident.
