There was no sign of the truck driver involved in a fiery head-on crash on the Glenelg Highway on Tuesday even minutes after the collision occurred, one of the first witnesses to arrive at the scene says.
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In a shock to police and locals, the truck driver was found alive 34 hours after the crash in a farmer's shed 16 kilometres from the scene.
The 51-year-old driver from Glen Waverley had been presumed dead after his B-double collided with a Mitsubishi Pajero four-wheel-drive and burst into flames on the highway at Tarrington, just outside the south-west Victorian town of Hamilton about 6am on Tuesday.
Police could find no sign of the truck driver after the crash and assumed his remains were in the charred, mangled wreck of his cab.
Specialist police officers from the Disaster Victim Identification Unit were still sifting through the wreckage when he was found alive by a farmer about 4pm on Wednesday.
Veteran truck driver Larry Jorgensen - owner of the Hamilton-Ballarat Freight Service - was among the first at the crash scene and doubted anyone could have survived the inferno that engulfed the prime mover.
He arrived to find the cab of a B-double truck completely engulfed in flames on the side of the highway. On the opposite side of the road, a Mitsubishi Pajero four-wheel-drive sat in a mangled wreck.
"You couldn't see the cab [of the truck]," Mr Jorgensen said.
"It was a fireball. The fire covered the trees on the side of the highway."
Mr Jorgensen saw no sign of the truck driver.
"He was gone even before I got there," he said.
"The police actually rang me yesterday and I told them, 'I bet my left arm he's in the truck, there's no way he would have gotten out'.
"It's got me stumped."
Mr Jorgensen was travelling not far behind the Pajero 4WD when he came over a crest in the highway to see a plume of black smoke ahead.
"I thought, 'someone's thrown out a cigarette and the trees are on fire'," he said.
"Then, 'wait, no it's a truck'."
Believing the truck driver could not be saved from the inferno, Mr Jorgensen ran to the aid of those in the 4WD.
He found the driver unconscious behind the wheel, before another motorist found the younger passenger.
"My mate Peter was there. He said, 'There's a kid in a car', so we concentrated on him," Mr Jorgensen said.
"I called triple-zero and then I thought I should check [the driver's] pulse again. I could feel a pulse, but by the time the ambulance got there, he was gone."
The driver of the 4WD, a 26-year-old man from South Australian, died at the scene.
His passenger, a 17-year-old boy also from South Australia, was cut from the vehicle and flown to the Royal Melbourne Hospital with life-threatening injuries. He was still in a critical condition on Wednesday night.
It is not yet clear how the truck driver survived, or why he travelled such a distance.
The driver is under police guard in Hamilton Hospital.
Western District Health chief executive Rohan Fitzgerald said the driver was in a stable condition on Wednesday night.
Anyone with information is urged to contact Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000.
