Police in western Jutland say they are stunned that two men refused to help a mother and her baby whose car was overturned yesterday in a bog just outside of the village of Bramming on Saturday.

“One said that he had a bad shoulder and the other said he was not wearing the right shoes and then ran from the scene,” said Henning Ravn from the Ribe police department. “It is totally unacceptable.”

The two were asked by a group of four other men who were trying to right the car.  Ravn said that if the men who stayed on the scene had not managed get the car back on its wheels, the mother and child might well have drowned.

“Four other men put in a superhuman effort to flip the car and saved the two lives,” said Ravn. “They were struggling, and that is why they asked the other two men to help.”

The police doubt they will be able to identify the pair that fled the scene.

“The people were saved, so it doesn’t really matter,” said Ravn. “Had it not gone well, we would spend a lot of time looking for them. It is against the law to leave an accident scene where people are in mortal danger.”

The child is out of danger, but the mother is still in hospital in Esbjerg.