But what made the situation worse was that while emergency services were attending to 16 injured people, local residents were busy stripping and stealing what they could from two cars and a truck.
“This is becoming a trend. It is even happening when injured people are still in their cars,” said Jamieson.
Last night, another medical rescue service confirmed that looting happened regularly at accident scenes.
The multiple pile-up happened on Saturday afternoon on the N2 southbound, near Chesterville, after a pedestrian was knocked down and killed and a second collision occurred.
“A truck collided into vehicles, pushing two vehicles down the bank. The truck also came to rest down the bank. A total of 11 cars and the truck were involved,” Jamieson said.
More resources were despatched to help, and that was when people began to help themselves to what they could from the three wrecks.
Paul Herbst of IPSS Medical Rescue Service confirmed that looting happened regularly on freeways, with the perpetrators being pedestrians or people driving past the incident.
The last incident was last year on the N2 between Mandeni and Stanger. It made paramedics' jobs more difficult because they struggled to identify the accident victims.
The looters were generally not hostile to paramedics and often left when they arrived.
It was "disturbing" that accident victims were not helped by the looters but robbed instead.
Shawn Herbst of Netcare 911 said that from his experience, this was more of a case of people being opportunistic.
He too said the looters never disturbed paramedics from doing their jobs.
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