Trapped for three days

Police say the 45-year-old woman from Tumut - who is now in Canberra Hospital - was driving home along Wondalga Road, Wondalga, in the state's south, about 3pm on Sunday after visiting family, when she swerved to miss a kangaroo.

"It appears the woman has lost control of her Commodore on a bend and careered down an embankment coming to rest on its roof," NSW police said in a statement.

The woman, who was the only person in the car, had her leg pinned underneath the vehicle, which came to rest 8m down the embankment and in the middle of thick scrub.

She was stuck there until local teenager Caleb Wilks found her about 6pm yesterday, when he heard her screams for help while he was out walking.

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Tumut mayor John Larter was one of three paramedics called out to the incident.

He said he was not surprised the woman had not been found for so long because she was 8m down the embankment. She was pinned near the door and window of the car, which lay among thorny blackberry bushes.

Wondalga Road was "not the best, but not the worst" road to travel on and had a number of steep turns.

"There was some evidence that a car had left the road but it wasn't obvious to anyone that someone might be down there," he said.

Sergeant Hammond said police had yet to formally speak to the woman, a long time resident of Tumut, but it was believed speed may have been a factor in the crash.

He said it appeared she didn't have any food in the car.

"It's fortunate that we didn't have really hot weather, otherwise I think it would have been a different story," Sergeant Hammond said.

"Where the car was positioned, she would have got the sun in the morning but not in the afternoon."

She had not been reported missing to police, he said.

Mayor and paramedic John Larter conducting a training exercise.

File photo: Tumut and Adelong Times.

Mr Larter said that considering what she had been through, the woman was in a remarkably good condition.

"It was a surprise to us to find out that she'd been there for that long," he said.

"It was also a surprise to see that she was in such good spirits."

Mr Larter said he did not know exactly how she had managed to survive.

"There was storms, there was hot weather. I think she is pretty lucky."

The Bureau of Meteorology said the maximum temperatures in the area during that period ranged from 25 to 31 degrees.

"I think that was just probably more good fortune than anything that she didn't have any other obvious significant injury," he said.

"As anyone would be in a vehicle lying upside down for three days over Christmas, I imagine anyone would have been distressed.

"You'd be missing your family over Christmas and I suppose you'd be wondering when somebody was going to come and rescue you.

"It obviously just kept getting longer and longer and nobody was coming."

Though he often attends accidents involving local residents, Mr Larter said he did not recognise the woman trapped under the vehicle and could not reveal her identity due to confidentiality reasons.

"Obviously I come across quite a few people I know as mayor and other times I might not know them even though they know me," he said.

The woman was flown to Canberra Hospital. Photo: Ambulance Service of NSW

Mr Larter was joined by members of the Tumut State Emergency Service as well as a Wagga paramedic trained specifically in rescues.

A spokesman for the State Emergency Service said volunteers waited for paramedics to stabilise the woman before using air bags to lift the car off her leg.

Cutters were used to remove one of the doors and paramedics, SES volunteers and rural fire service volunteers then used a rescue board to carry her up the embankment to a waiting helicopter.

"The obvious difficulty was the fact she was trapped by the leg so we had to be mindful of the fact that she had a crush injury," he said.

"What happens is you can get a toxin build-up below the injury site and once you release it you end up releasing all the toxins into the blood system, which can cause cardiac problems.

"We applied a tourniquet to ensure that didn't occur and successfully released her."

It is believed the weight of the car on her leg acted as a torniquet, which stopped heavy bleeding, a statment from the Ambulance Service of NSW said.

The woman was flown by SnowyHydro SouthCare to Canberra Hospital, where surgeons had to amputate her left leg.

Police said she remained in a stable condition.

Mr Wilks's mother, Gabriel, did not want to say much about what had happened.

"He's doing well. It was a stressful thing for anyone to come across," Mrs Wilks said.

Sergeant Brian Hammond praised the teenager's actions.

"He's called triple-0, he's indicated to the woman that help was coming, and he's stayed up on the road so that we could see him," he told AAP.

"Otherwise we wouldn't have found the car.

"He's been very mature. His parents are very proud of him, and she's been very lucky that he walked by."

with smh.com.au