Police, fire and rescue, and ambulance crews rushed to King Street, near Hoskins Avenue, around 3.30pm to find the twisted and mangled cab of a white Toyota utility which had collided heavily with a roadside powerpole.

Two lanes of traffic on the busy thoroughfare were blocked as crews worked to free the 43-year-old driver, who was pinned by his lower body inside his vehicle.

Ambulance NSW Illawarra duty operations manager Inspector Norm Rees said the driver had come into contact with another car while driving south on King Street near the Domayne store.

‘‘He has come across and hit the side of another vehicle, then lost control and hit the pole,’’ Insp Rees said.

The other driver involved, in a brown Ford, was shaken by the incident, and later taken to Wollongong Hospital with back pain.

Witnesses at the scene spoke of hearing screeching brakes and a loud crunch as the ute collided with the pole, with one man saying the ute ‘‘bounced off’’ and landed on the gutter.

Fire and rescue crews removed the driver’s side doors of the crushed vehicle, placing the driver in a neck brace and oxygen mask as they worked to free him. Around 40 minutes after the collision, the driver was removed from the vehicle and airlifted to St George Hospital.

He is in a stable condition.

Insp Rees said the driver had head lacerations, and a suspected fractured pelvis.

‘‘He is very, very lucky,’’ he said.

Southbound traffic was slow for much of the afternoon on King Street, with two of the three lanes closed as emergency crews cleared the area. Traffic was also heavy on Shellharbour Road as drivers tried to avoid the crash scene.

Police are asking anyone who witnessed the crash to contact Crime Stoppers: 1800 333 000.