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STORY: Three people have been airlifted to hospital with serious injuries following a head-on collision in Narrawallee on Thursday afternoon.
Emergency services were called to the crash at 3.50pm on Matron Porter Drive adjacent to Frogs Holla sporting ground.
A 36-year-old male driver was trapped by his left leg in a silver sports utility vehicle, suffering a fractured left femur, pelvis, right wrist and fibula and suspected spinal injuries.
He was taken by road ambulance to Shoalhaven Hospital, then airlifted to St George Hospital.
His front-seat passenger, a woman believed aged 37, was airlifted in a critical condition with abdominal injuries, a fractured right tibia and fibula and suspected spinal injuries to a Sydney hospital.
Meanwhile, a five-year-old boy was taken to Milton Ulladulla Hospital by road with facial injuries, where his condition deteriorated. He has since been airlifted to Sydney Children’s Hospital, Randwick.
A witness on the scene said “up to nine people” were working to free the man.
Emergency crews used hydraulic cutters to remove the man from the car. Pieces of the car, including the boot, were removed.
“The car was being dismantled to remove the man,” she said.
“They used the jaws of life.”
The cars collided in a 60km/h roadwork zone on a bend.
A man travelling in a separate vehicle was transported to Milton Hospital for assessment, suffering minor injuries, a NSW Ambulance spokesman said.
The road remained closed in both directions on Thursday evening while crash investigators examined the scene.
Judy Brown, whose son is a paramedic and the Ulladulla Ambulance station manager, was on the scene shortly after the crash. Fortunately, her son was not there working.
"I was leaving to go somewhere five minutes before so I was lucky,” she said.
"It's a bit of a sweeping bend there. At the moment it's only 60 km/h but it's normally 80 km/h which is probably a bit too fast.
“They're doing the footpath extending up the hill at the moment so there are roadworks."
"I was just very lucky that I wasn't on that road. You just hope that they're all going to be okay."
This follows a head on crash on the Princes Highway on Boxing Day which killed four people and left one fighting for life.
The first on the scene at that crash was Lisa Elmas of Narrawallee. In an extraordinary string of events, Ms Elmas was also one of the first at the scene at the Matron Porter Drive crash.
Annabelle, Lars and Vivienne Falkholt were killed in the fiery crash, while former Home and Away atar Jessica Folkholt remains fighting for life.
Craig Whittal from Ulladulla swerved onto the the wrong side of the road, killing the family and himself.
Ms Elmas told Fairfax Media she was approaching the Narrawallee crash site this afternoon when she realised what she was seeing, and – knowing there were others already assisting the injured - turned her car around.
“It was too much for me. I turned around after the police overtook me,” she said.
“It’s too soon.
“I'm up and down. It's a day to day process. It's going to take some time. I just want to try and get back to normality for my children.”
In the aftermath of the Boxing Day tragedy, Ms Elmas has called for first aid kids and fire extinguishers to be made mandatory in all vehicles.
She has created a petition – which can be signed at change.org – in support of the cause.