A woman has freed herself from her car, which rolled and came to rest on its roof after she reportedly swerved to miss a dog near Dapto.
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Emergency services were called to the accident on Cleveland Road at Cleveland, about three kilometres west of the Princes Highway, just after 9am on Thursday.
A senior Illawarra paramedic said the driver, a 21-year-old woman, manged to get herself out of the upturned vehicle and walked away with minor injuries, despite the serious nature of the crash.
“She said that she’s swerved to miss a dog. She’s gone onto the grass verge and snapped off a power pole,” NSW Ambulance Illawarra duty operations manager Inspector Norm Rees said.
“It [the impact] has been right in front of the steering wheel so it’s all frontal impact.”
Inspector Rees said all of the car’s airbags deployed on impact.
Despite initial reports the driver was trapped, the woman was able to free herself.
She sustained minor cuts and abrasions to her hands and central chest pain from the seat belt, and was taken to Wollongong Hospital in a stable condition.
“[She was] very, very, very lucky. You don’t do all of that and get those kind of injuries,” he said.
“I’ve been to many accidents with similar impacts and the drivers are deceased or have significant injuries.”
The crash is the second this week involving drivers reportedly swerving to avoid animals across the Illawarra and Southern Highlands.
On Tuesday night, a teenager was critically injured when the car he was travelling in left the Illawarra Highway at Burrawang, west of Robertson, and hit a tree.
The 15-year-old boy, one of three passengers, was thrown from the vehicle and sustained serious head injuries.
Police have been told the driver swerved to avoid a wombat on the road. The driver was taken to hospital, while the remaining two passengers were treated for minor injuries.
According to the NSW Centre for Road Safety, one in every 41 casualty crashes on country roads involves a vehicle hitting an animal.
The extended dry spell being experienced across the state means an increasing number of animals, in particular kangaroos, are appearing on roadsides to graze on greenery.
Inspector Rees urged drivers to be alert – and never to swerve trying to avoid wildlife.
“Don’t adjust your driving and put yourself at risk for animals,” he said. “I know it’s cruel to say, but its the lesser of the two evils.
“As we can see by recent examples, swerving to miss animals usually ends up in catastrophic results for the driver. Usually the animals can make their way out of it.”
In the case of the dog reportedly involved in Cleveland crash, it walked away unscathed.
Police and fire crews also responded to Thursday morning’s crash.
Endeavour Energy crews have been called in to fix the damaged power pole. However, it is understood there are no wires down in the area.