Originally Posted by Dude who crashed
First off, I’d like to say thank you to all of you guys that have been sending thoughts and prayers. They are greatly appreciated, by both myself, and my wife.
I really don’t remember what happened, and I have memory lose of events that transpired from late Saturday, until sometime Wednesday afternoon.
The accident happened towards the end of morning practice Sunday; I was going down the straight between turns 4 and 5, traveling between 110 and 120 mph, when I just drove straight off the track, no turning of the wheel, no brakes, nothing. There is speculation that I may have been knocked out from poison fumes from burning brake fluid, as there was a report the previous lap that my left front brake may have been over heating. Don’t think we’ll ever know for certain…
I went across about 50 yards of deep grass, through a barbed wire fence, then hit a 6" diameter tree with the left front. The tree may have been growing at an angle, not sure, but the car drove up this tree, snapping it off about 4 or 5 feet above the ground. This created a ramp effect that started the car rolling as it continued forward. It had rotated 90 degrees, when it met a pair of trees roof first. These trees didn’t move, and the car then slide down, coming to a stop upside down.
The roof had collapsed enough to push my head down, but unfortunately the collapsed cage got caught between my helmet and my HANS Device. This pushed my head far enough down that my airway was closed off. As soon as the report of a “heavy impact” was reported by the corner workers, the emergency personnel got there very quickly. They had a bit of a problem getting me out, due to me being upside down, and the cage being stuck between my helmet and HANS. As soon as they cut the tethers to my HANS, they were able to lower me down, and move me out of the car. Once they were able to straighten my head up a little, I immediately took a deep breath. At that point my face was deep red, and my lips were blue.
Meanwhile, they had decided that the crash was severe enough that I should be transported via helicopter to the hospital.
Sadly, they had to cut off my new driving suit, the t-shirt I was wearing (034EFI), and my gloves. But at least my shoes are ok…
I don’t really remember much about the hospital stay, so I may have my wife write something about that…
Needless to say, the emergency staff at the track, and at the hospital, were fantastic. If it wasn’t for the quick thinking of the track EMT’s, I probably wouldn’t be here now.
I’ll take that 20VT
The word lucky comes to mind.
cage > tree
Holy living hell. Now, that, ladies and gentlemen, is an IMPACT
i bet my autopower bolt in cage would have done the same.
:sarcasm:
Uhm, the cage is hardly designed to protect from an impact like that.
goddamm, what a lucky bastard.
word… all though wonder what the outcome would have been cageless.
:word:
That is why they call them “roll” cages and not “smash top first into a a really large tree at really high speed” cages.
It looks amazingly like my old car!?!
Two cars?
how can burning brake fluid knock you out? must be some crazy brakefluid.
he is very lucky. that the EMTs were there. how long can you go without breathing?
That or one u-shaped car with a squishy jelly donut like filling at the center.
If that car had 1000 fewer lbs it probably wouldn’t have crushed.
Stupid awd German tanks and their inertia.
(Did I just say that?)
:biglaugh:
And he hit it at the weakest point for that type of impact.
Almost pure cross sectional loading of a cantelever/pointload (kinda) beam.
i can go about 5.7 hours.