Mother, child saved from certain death

Two unknown passersby pulled the woman and her daughter from this car moments before it was engulfed in flames on a Taupo back road yesterday.

A mother and her 4-year-old daughter were pulled from their crashed car moments before it caught fire and exploded near Lake Taupo yesterday.

The car hit a Whangamata Rd bank before flipping on to its roof.

Two people travelling in the opposite direction saw the accident and rushed to haul the passengers out. Alistair Piper, the officer in charge of the Kinloch Fire Brigade, said the woman and her daughter would have died if they had not been pulled from the car.

"They were very lucky to get out of there alive," he told the Herald last night.

He could not say how long the pair were out of the car before it caught fire but did not think it could have been long.

"What you can say is the two people who pulled them out saved their lives."

When the Kinloch first response team arrived, they found the car engulfed in flames and the injured people on the side of the road.

Mr Piper did not know who the male rescuers were but one who stayed with the injured 25-year-old woman "was quite young, and looked like a family man".

Advanced paramedic Sonia Maria feared the crash was fatal when she arrived.

The car - upside down and burning - was "pretty spectacular" and could easily have been deadly, she said.

Both the woman and the girl were conscious and were treated alongside each other. "They were right next door to each other, so they could touch each other and talk. The only time they were apart was the helicopter ride."

Ms Maria said it was "uncanny" the two both had "nasty" broken femurs.

Youthtown Trust Rescue helicopter pilot Andrew Harrison said "they crashed on a back road ... it was incredibly fortunate that someone was travelling past them after the crash, and had the sense to help them out.

"They were very lucky. When you saw the car wreckage, it must have got very hot in there. The passengers couldn't move because of their injuries so the intervention was crucial."

Two helicopters took the mother and child to Waikato Hospital with multiple injuries including broken legs and ribs. The child had a fractured pelvis.

The mother was last night in a stable condition but her daughter, who is in a serious condition, was expected to be flown to Auckland's Starship hospital for further treatment.