Teenager trapped in car for 30 hours saved after father’s intuition told him to hire search helicopter

Pilot spots Samuel Lethbridge's car in woods within 15 minutes of taking off

Emergency services work to cut Samuel Lethbridge from the wreck of his car (AP)

A seriously injured teenager who spent 30 hours trapped in a wrecked car has been saved after his father decided to hire a helicopter to search for his son.

Australian police believed Samuel Lethbridge, 17, had probably run away from home after he failed to return from a Saturday night out with friends in the city of Newcastle, New South Wales.

But his father, Tony Lethbridge, was convinced “something was wrong”, so hired a helicopter on Monday morning. The pilot spotted Samuel’s car in woods within 15 minutes of taking off.

The teenager was subsequently found alive and emergency services cut him from the wreck. He remained in intensive care in hospital with multiple fractures two days after the crash.

Mr Lethbridge said he suspected his son may have been in an accident. The teenager had dropped off a friend about 30 milesfrom home early on Sunday morning before he vanished, his father said.

The car was found off a motorway in scrubland just 12 miles from his home in Lake Macquarie.

“When I saw the police, they thought he’d run away. I said that’s not Samuel. When he doesn’t show up or phone, something’s seriously wrong,” Mr Lethbridge told the Associated Press.

“I understand that they’ve got a lot to do and they hear this every day, but I took matters into my own hands and was thinking all night that tomorrow morning, I’m just going to get a helicopter and go looking for him because we’re running out of time – it’s been long enough,” he added.

The father recalled that a victim of an earlier crash in the area had died after not being found for five days. “I wasn’t going to let that happen,” he said.

Lee Mitchell, pilot and part-owner of Skyline Aviation Group at Lake Macquarie, said he discounted his usual helicopter hire rate of 1,200 Australian dollars (£693) an hour when the father explained his reason for hiring the craft.

“He came in looking anxious and somewhat fatigued and said he needed a helicopter bad,” Mr Mitchell said of meeting Tony Lethbridge on Monday morning at the Port Macquarie airport.

Mr Lethbridge said he had reported his son as a missing person to police and explained his fears of a car accident near home.

“He just said: ‘I’ve got A$1,000 (£577) on me, will that be enough?’ and we said ’yes, it would,”’ Mr Mitchell added.

The helicopter took off soon after with the boy’s uncle Michael Lethbridge aboard, because the father was prone to air sickness.

“It was fairly easy to spot from the air. It would’ve been near impossible to see from the road because it was well below the road level,” Mr Mitchell said.

The uncle was the first to reach the car.

“I really didn’t want to go. I was scared of what I’d find. As I got closer I seen Sam’s head move,” Michael Lethbridge said. “I went from being terrified to ecstatic in a couple of seconds.”

Mr Mitchell was hovering overhead when the uncle signalled the boy was alive.

“We were overwhelmed. It was a great outcome. We’ve done a lot of search and rescue stuff in previous years and they don’t always turn out so favourably,” Mr Mitchell said.

Tony Lethbridge, who works in a mail sorting room of the national postal service, has no complaints.

“It’s priceless. If it’s A$1000 I’ve got to pay to get his life, I’m OK with that,” the father said.

Additional reporting by AP