Just minutes after Nelson Bay contractor Scott Pateman and his son Rhys freed two victims of a rollover on the Devils Pinch, they turned to see a car flying through the air towards them.
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“It was like a scene in a movie,” Mr Pateman said.
A split second later and the pair were diving for safety as a red sedan rolled off the New England Highway near Armidale.
It crash landed beside the first car, with five shaken men dangling upside down in their seats.
“It must have rolled six or eight times,” Mr Pateman told Fairfax Media shortly after the incident on Monday morning.
“We ran over, ripped the door open and got them out.”
Mr Pateman’s 21-year-old son, Rhys, was travelling to work with his father installing airconditioning at the Armidale Hospital redevelopment.
It’s a temporary job while they wait to commence a contract on the Williamtown RAAF base.
“I’ve never seen anything like it … I was pretty shaken up,” he said.
“Afterwards it felt like any other day when we got to work.
“We kept getting updates from family and friends of the media coverage.”
But heroism runs in the family.
“My other two children are a police officer, a nurse and my son-in-law is a paramedic … maybe it’s in the blood,” Mr Pateman said.
“We’re just fishermen though.”
The female passenger of the first car was rushed to Armidale Hospital where she received 13 stitches in her head.
The driver, suffering from back pain, was reported to be in a stable condition.
Armidale Police Sergeant Laurie Cattell said it was likely both cars slipped on black ice on the Devils Pinch, a bend of road notorious for its tight corners and icy conditions.
“There’s a possibility there may have been black ice on the road given the fact that we had another heavy frost up here this morning,” he said.
Sergeant Cattell told Fairfax Media the incident was a bizarre coincidence that both vehicles were to land parallel, facing the same way on the side of the highway.
“Both cars came around the corner and lost control both ending up in the same place side by side,” he said.
Mr Pateman said he was surprised, but very grateful, no one was seriously injured.
“We’re glad no one was seriously hurt,” he said.
The pair hope to head back to Nelson Bay soon to catch up on some fishing.
