Hero of the Sydney Harbour Bridge crash tried to save car thief's life

A hero of the Harbour Bridge crash has relived pulling the reckless driver of a stolen SUV from the flames.

Keni Vukici watched the Toyota Kluger, which was carjacked from the CBD minutes earlier, zoom past him at up to 100km/h on Monday morning.

Seconds later it swerved on to the wrong side of the road and crashed head-on into a Toyota HiAce van at 7.06am, the impact flipping the car on to it’s roof.

Mr Vukici, a former bodyguard, said his instincts kicked in and he dived out of his vehicle to drag the SUV driver out of the wreck as it began to smoulder. 

‘There were two guys trying to get him out from the driver’s side. I ran around to the passenger’s side… pushed the airbag out of the way to make sure no one was in there,’ he told .

Mr Vukici said it looked like the driver of the stolen car wasn’t wearing a seatbelt, though this made it easier to pull him from the car. 

He then joined another man to help a 53-year-old woman from a third car, a Honda CR-V, that was badly damaged when the van ricocheted into it.

By now the Kluger was engulfed in flames and Mr Vukici and other rescuers dragged the driver away from the fire.

‘At that point, the SUV had caught alight, so we helped move the driver – who was semi-conscious at this point – slightly away from the car. We actually had to hold him down at one point,’ he said.

‘He was yelling out ‘Get off me!’ then passing out again… It was insane.’

Mr Vukici insists his action were ‘nothing special’ and his work experience built his instincts for ‘panic situations’.  

The unidentified carjacker – a man in his 30s – was sedated and is being treated for serious injuries while under police guard.

The woman was treated at the scene by NSW Ambulance paramedics and taken to Royal Prince Alfred Hospital for treatment of non-life threatening injuries.

The van driver, a 31-year-old man, was trapped and freed by rescuers, before he was taken to St Vincent’s Hospital with pelvic and leg injuries in a serious but stable condition.

NSW Ambulance Inspector Giles Buchanan thanked brave witnesses who jumped from their vehicles to help the drivers.

‘A number of bystanders and other emergency service workers who risked their lives to assist these patients are absolute heroes, we can’t thank them enough,’ he said.

‘One of the vehicles was well alight when we arrived on scene, it was an extraordinary effort to get the patient out of the vehicle safely.

‘We urge all motorists to drive to the conditions especially in this treacherous weather.’

NSW Fire and Rescue acting Superintendent Matt Sigmund also thanked a Traffic Management Centre worker who helped save the van driver who was trapped in his vehicle.

‘One of the traffic commanders came up to the incident in the very early stages, because he heard it, and actually dragged the van that had the person trapped in it away from the other vehicle that was on fire,’ he told the Today show.

The fire was extinguished by 8am with 25 firefighters on the scene.

Superintendent Cramsie sad the Kluger was stolen when the owner of the SUV was changing a tyre near Sussex and Goulburn streets when the alleged thief approached him. 

‘There was a short scuffle which ensued and then the male who was asking about the Kluger got into the Kluger and drove it away and then headed towards the Harbour Bridge,’ he said.

From Sussex Street in Haymarket, a vehicle could be driven onto Little Hay Street, Harbour Street and then onto the bridge via the Western Distributor within five minutes of being carjacked.  

Witnesses described seeing the SUV driving erratically across the centre lanes of the bridge.

‘The [car] that caused it was going about 100km/h on the wrong side of the road then swerved into the correct lane then lost control crashed head on with a van… car flipped and caught fire,’ one said.

Superintendent Cramsie said police would allege the SUV was speeding when it caused the crash, as it appeared to be in the video.

‘I have seen the dashcam footage. It’s extremely confronting, and I can only start to begin to imagine what the other drivers would have witnessed and experienced when they saw that vehicle coming towards them,’ he said.

‘We would ask anybody who may have any information at all either to do with the [alleged] stealing of the Kluger or the collision itself, including any dashcam footage, to come forward and contact Crime Stoppers.

‘Those people that stopped their cars and got out and helped, they’ve been extremely brave and that’s not the type of thing that just anybody does.

‘A lot of people would have kept driving, a lot of people would have stopped in their cars and watched but those people who stopped and got out have shown tremendous courage and we applaud them for that.’

Traffic was backed up as far as the eye could see with lanes closed in both directions while emergency services tried to reach the scene.

Roads towards the bridge were so gridlocked that police were seen abandoning their cars on the on-ramp and running through traffic to reach the scene.