A WOMAN whose car veered off the road and careered down a steep embankment was airlifted to hospital after a dramatic emergency services rescue at Upper Beaconsfield last Thursday.
Pakenham Road Rescue Unit, incorporating Pakenham SES and the Nar Nar Goon CFA, along with Upper Beaconsfield CFA, paramedics and Pakenham police were involved in the operation.
The steep terrain meant the woman had to be winched up to the air ambulance.
Rescuers also had to use ropes and a basket stretcher to ferry equipment down to the car, which had come to rest against a fence post in bushland about 40 metres downhill from the roadside.
The crash occurred on Salisbury Road, near Split Rock Road, just after 9.20am.
The woman was the sole occupant of the car, which was a Mitsubishi Triton utility.
She suffered chest and leg injuries in the crash.
She was flown to the Royal Melbourne Hospital in a serious but stable condition.
Rescue workers cut the injured woman from her car using the ‘jaws of life’.
Pakenham State Emergency Service spokesman Steve Monro said it was one of the more ‘unusual’ rescue operations he had been involved in over five years with the SES.
Upper Beaconsfield CFA captain Graeme MacGowan said the car came to rest a long way from the road.
He said traffic in the area was diverted for some time after the incident.
Rescuers were on scene until 11.30am.
