Three members of the South African Military Health Service (SAMHS) were in the right place at the right time when they chanced upon a truck crash while transferring a patient to Pretoria.
The three medics from Area Military Health Unit KZN Emergency Military Medical Care (EMMC) Section were travelling with their patient 30 km north of Vrede on the N3 when they came across the accident in the late afternoon of 23 October, Corporal Zwelethu Ngema reported for the SAMHS.
Sergeant Boitumelo Baakeleng (Operational Emergency Care Practitioner), Corporal Ngema (Advanced Life Support Paramedic) and Private Thembeka Langa (Immediate Life Support) stopped to immediately provide emergency medical care and found two men with life threatening injuries.
Ngema employed his medical rescue skills to assist a trapped patient with a head injury and multiple soft tissue injuries. The second patient sustained a fracture. The patients were stabilised and handed over to Government Emergency Medical Care for further medical attention and transportation.
Colonel Mathe Lesenyeho, Director Emergency Military Medical Care congratulated these “selfless military pre-hospital care givers” and applauded their instincts on saving lives.
