'Save my kids,' shouts trapped mum

File photo / Herald on Sunday

A 13-year-old boy helped three younger children from a crashed car in which his mother was trapped for almost an hour near Dargaville on New Year's Eve.

The Te Kopuru woman in her early 30s was driving toward Baylys Beach when her car ran off the Baylys Coast Rd on a corner near the intersection with State Highway 12.

The car came to rest on its side over a bank, facing the way it had come. A fence post that stopped it tumbling further down the bank caused two large wounds on the woman's right forearm and pinned her right hand to the steering wheel as she lay at the bottom of the overturned vehicle.

A passing motorist called 111 at 4.50pm after spotting a boy and girl aged about five crying on the roadside while the 13-year-old and his 8-year-old brother were standing on top of the wreck.

The 8-year-old was very distressed, tears streaming down his face as he screamed: "Help my mother."

The motorist got the boys off the car, then talked to the woman who shouted: "Save my kids."

The 13-year-old had already done that.

Calm beyond his years, he helped the young children out of their seatbelts and led them out of the car to safety by the roadside.

The trapped woman could not be moved until firefighters and ambulance staff arrived.

Firefighters anchored the car to a fire truck so it wouldn't overturn, disconnected the horn - which had been jammed on since the crash - and cut out the windscreen before removing her.

She was carried up the bank on a stretcher and taken by ambulance to a nearby paddock where the Northland Emergency Services Trust rescue helicopter landed to take her to hospital in Auckland for treatment.

Dargaville police Constable Brett Steel said the children were uninjured and wet conditions contributed to the crash.

Local farmer Malcolm Welsh said there had been about 10 crashes on the corner in the past five years.