It was shaping up to be a quiet night at the end of a long school week for Logan Park High School pupils Benjy Mathieson, Wilbur Geels and Nathan Peters when they heard what sounded like a car crash shortly after 7.30pm on Friday night.
The trio ran several hundred metres along Reservoir Rd, Sawyers Bay, in the direction of the noise, and discovered a Toyota Corolla upside down in the creek.
The car had crashed through a bridge railing.
Benjy called out in the darkness and heard a faint reply from the young female driver - the sole occupant of the vehicle.
Unable to open the driver's door, Benjy asked her if she was in any discomfort and if she could open the window.
"She just said she was sore, and I helped pull her out and on to the bank," he said.
Meanwhile, Nathan had called emergency services and Wilbur fetched his next-door neighbour, a nurse, who helped care for the distressed woman while they waited for the ambulance to arrive.
Although the trio had downplayed their role, Senior Constable Phil Beckwith, of Port Chalmers, said the boys did a great job.
They had followed all the right procedures, without causing the driver any more harm, Snr Const Beckwith said.
The 21-year-old driver would probably have been lying at the scene for a long time if the boys had not investigated the accident, he said.
The driver's mother, who did not want to be named, told the Otago Daily Times her daughter was out of hospital, but still shaken from the incident.
Her daughter had knocked her head badly, but was otherwise uninjured, she said.
The boys who helped her daughter were "amazing guys", she said"I'm just so grateful they were there to help her.
"And the other woman [the nurse] was wonderful, too."
The car was extensively damaged and has been removed from the crash scene.
