‘You could see the fire’: Man pulled injured teen from fatal head-on smash

A man has opened up about the moment he dragged a teenage boy from the wreckage of a head-on smash in South Australia’s Riverland area.

Derek Bell saw flames towering above tree tops in Renmark on Sunday and he ran to help.

He found a Holden ute and sedan had crashed head-on at about 7.30pm.

“You could see the fire from where we were at and I thought the paddock was alight,” Bell said.

“The Commodore there wasn’t much left, it was on fire, the ute was on its roof, it didn’t look like there was much damage, but we couldn’t get in, we couldn’t get two of the doors open.”

Bell helped first responders pull the ute driver, a 17-year-old boy, from the wreckage.

“I pulled on the doors with the police officer and the police officer crawled into the car and actually got the guy out,” Bell said.

“These emergency services, they are amazing.”

The teenager was airlifted to hospital, where he is now clinging to life. 

The other driver in the sedan, another 17-year-old from Renmark, died at the scene.

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“To hear they were 17, I’ve got a 15-year-old son and that really, really hit hard,” Bell said.

A 23-year-old passenger in the sedan escaped with minor injuries.

South Australian Police Minister Michael Brown said the road toll is up among every age group.

“It’s not a matter of looking at one particular aspect of the road toll and saying ‘this is what we need to combat’, it’s across the board, which is very disappointing,” Brown said.

Major crash investigators scanned every inch of the scene to try to understand what caused the deadly smash.  

“This is going to strike the whole town,” Bell said.

“All the parents, all the kids, all the teachers, everyone’s now got to deal with what’s just happened.”