Woman was pinned in her car for nearly three hours after crash on Cork's Carr’s Hill

FURTHER details have been confirmed relating to the multi-vehicle collision that occurred on Thursday afternoon on the N28 at Carr’s Hill.

The incident, which left a woman in her 50s fighting for her life in Cork University Hospital (CUH), involved three cars, a van and a truck.

The female driver, who is believed to have been travelling in the opposite direction to the articulated truck, was pinned inside her car for just under three hours by a container that had covered up to the A-Post of her vehicle.

Coordinated effort 

Speaking to The Echo, Cork City Fire Brigade second officer Victor Shine said that the container weighed approximately 40 tonnes.

“It would be like a train carriage coming down on top of you,” he said.

“It was a coordinated effort between a number of doctors, a team from CUH, the ambulance crew and the fire crews that were all on scene to stabilise the vehicle and carry out the extrication. It was quite complicated,” he added.

“The quicker a person is freed from that situation the better, and this person was stabilised with the support of the full crew that was there.”

Close

Detailing the coordinated efforts of the emergency response teams, pre-hospital emergency medicine and critical care retrieval physician, Dr Jason Van der Velde, told The Neil Prendeville Show on Cork’s Red FM: “It was very apparent that a lot of hands were needed on the scene to manage what I would describe as one of our most technically challenging rescues in the last 10 years.

“This is the sort of entrapment you only see with earthquakes. One slip and that was it. It really was that close, and that’s why it took three hours. It was a phenomenal collaboration between multiple agencies,” he said.

Gardaí in Togher are continuing to appeal to anyone who may have witnessed this incident, or who were travelling on the N28 between 1pm and 1.45pm on Thursday to contact them on (021) 4947120, or via the Garda Confidential Line on 1800 666 111.