cjsmith | Morning excitement

Current Mood: impressed

Morning excitement

I was sitting in the living room when I heard eeeeeeeeee BOOM, windows rattling and all. Rob emerged from the shower wondering if a car had crashed into our house.

Close.

A car had crashed into the fire hydrant on the corner, next door to our house, and was now upside down in the neighbors' rosebushes. Where the hydrant had been was a two-story fountain about five feet in diameter. By the time I got there, less than a minute after the noise, the car was empty. Across the street a bicyclist stood staring at this tableau and talking on his cellphone. I saw a figure look around the neighbors' open backyard gate and vanish again. Shortly afterward a slender black man reached into the car, grabbed a small bag, and walked calmly away down the street with a woman beside him. Witnesses said the car had been going eastward on Homestead very very fast, weaving, and had tried to take the turn onto my street at an impossible speed. Police arrived, took witness statements, and found the driver and passenger. Firemen got the water shut off. I got to meet several of my neighbors for the first time. (Not the occupants of the house. They weren't there. I wonder what they're going to think when they get home.)

This was impressive in a lot of ways:
1) The police arrived very fast. (I learned later that they were already chasing that car.)
2) That hydrant saved the house.
3) A fire hydrant can make a really big hole in the front of a car. And flip it, and spin it so it's backwards (nose pointing back the way it came).
4) The occupants of the car walked away.
5) The police found them anyway.
6) We have some serious water pressure, yo.

I bet the owner of that car is going to miss it.

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A fire hydrant can make a really big hole in the front of a car. And flip it, and spin it so it's backwards (nose pointing back the way it came).

Sounds like that's all one operation: the car hits the hydrant; the point of impact stays put and the rest of the car keeps going forward (and, therefore, up and over).

I do remember being told in Drivers' Ed that if you have to crash into something, try to aim for a wall and not a tree, because the wall will spread the force of impact over a larger area.

Yes indeedy, all one operation. The hydrant was lying on the sidewalk about a foot, maybe eighteen inches tops, from where it had once stood. Those bolts are really strong.

A two-story fountain of water? THAT sounds SO COOL!!!

And "pictures ?" :-)

Rob's got some, I think. He came out with the camera and asked a random policeman whether it was okay. Not sure he got there early enough for the water.

I once thought about taking pictures of a tree damaged by a car, and the car, near our house. Then I thought better of it because the car that went off the road was an Alameda County Sheriff's vehicle. So . . . no.

Heh, yeah. :-)

It was impressive.

Well, that's a little more excitement than a person really needs in the morning!!

Glad the occupants of the car were *able* to walk. Surprised that they did!

Yes, it was definitely over my Minimum Daily Requirement. :-)

Given that they pulled this stunt in an attempt to escape some cops, I'm not at all surprised that they left the scene. But I'm really impressed that they were able to walk.

High speed chases can be *really* dangerous.

Now I'm wondering whether the occupants were wearing seatbelts.

I'm guessing no, because they were able to get out.

Every airbag in the vehicle went off though. Whole interior was full of shrunken airbag remains. :-)

I would have thought it'd take more than airbags to keep un-seat-belted occupants in a car that does that. I could be wrong though. None of the cars I've driving that have been hit have had airbags... and in the major one when I was 18, I very much give my seat belt a lot of credit for my still being alive.

I honestly wonder what kept their necks from snapping. Neither airbags nor seat belts will reliably do that, not when people land directly on their heads.

The only reason I'd've guessed no belts is how fast they were able to leave the vehicle. But then I don't even know how they managed to get the doors open. The body of the car was crunched pretty badly, as you might imagine it would be after it landed on its roof. For all I know they were in Superhuman Mode and could get out of the belts easily too!

I was "trained" to be a seat belt user by a boyfriend who had a similar experience: he was hit badly and credits the seat belt with saving his life.

I can only guess that they were lucky and there was enough space between the roof of the car & their heads that they were protected. I would also guess crawling out through what remained of a window rather than a door. I exited through my shattered side window in the accident when I was 18.

I could go into much more detail about that 1988 accident when I was 18... I still remember a lot of it.

Was it cold or hot water?

I was living a few blocks away from the great Gramercy Park steam pipe explosion in New York. It sounded like a 747 taking off, and the geyser boiled alive people who were unlucky enough to be in the front rooms of the buildings next to it. Glad you're all right.

Cold. Oh wow, that's awful! :-(

Well at least this provided a diversion from your current stressful situation!

I wish we were going to be in your area longer this weekend so we could get together.

Yes indeed, and it provided a dose of perspective as well!

I wish we could get together too. Sadly, we're not going to be in our area this weekend. Perhaps another time!

Someone's neighborhood is gonna be on the news tonight, aren't they?

I never thought of that! If I had to guess, I'd guess not -- really it was just another one-car accident with no fatalities. It was a spectacular one, to be sure.

I do wonder how they're going to get the car back out of there.

Whoooooooo! Amazing!

That it was! I told Rob "I'll take a look outside, be right back" and I did *not* come right back. I goggled at it for some time.

Wow, that is really scary (though it would have been kind of cool to see that fountain!). I'm glad nobody got hurt.

The fountain was impressive! Especially since we could all "ooh" and "aah" at it instead of doing first aid.

First *ouch*

Second walked away? they could have very easily been driven away in an ambulance or worse.

Third, huh huh she said water pressure.....cool.

I was really impressed that they walked away. Heck, I was impressed that they could get out of there.

Scary accident. Impressive fire hydrant water fountain! Amazing they were able to walk away from that. I'm glad to see no one got hurt.

Reading this, I find myself thinking of 2 other neighborhood accidents. 1) Yesterday morning,

jemstone was awakened by screeching tires and the sound of a crash. (I awoke to him telling me he heard an accident outside.) It was scary because it was just four doors down and at first we were afraid a pedestrian might have been hit or killed -- thankfully that was not the case. From talking to neighbors, I found out that young woman driving a pickup truck fast down our street, for some unknown reason, crashed into a van parked in a driveway, pushing the van into a garage (where like your situation, the house owners were not home). I went out in the morning to see the woman who had been driving squatting down on the road crying and screaming.

jemstone was the 2nd person to call 911. Police arrived quickly followed by a firetruck, and then an ambulance. The police calmed the woman down and things were quiet again. The ambulance eventually took the woman away (without sirens on)... and later tow-trucks took the truck & van away. (I planned on writing about this in my own LJ, but have not done so yet. ...Maybe I'll copy this there.

2) Many years ago a friend told me of an accident that happened on his street. A drunk man was driving in circles (donuts) in the intersection near his house... then when he went to go straight down the street, he missed, hit the guard cable for the telephone pole, went straight UP the cable, and stuck the car hanging there. (I think authorities then a bit later and got him & the car down.) ....I imagine this tale to be both a comical (as well as scary for where else that car could have gone)... and one of just now strong those telephone pole anchor cables are!

Isn't it amazing that they weren't badly hurt? I mean, maybe they've got some injuries; if they were full of chemicals, even adrenaline, they might not have noticed. But clearly they didn't have broken legs or arms, broken necks, bad head injuries or big loss of blood. They could exit the vehicle (how??) and could walk.

Wow, both those accidents sound really impressive. Sometimes we don't realize how much kinetic energy there is in a vehicle going fast. And those anchor cables...! I never would have thought they'd stand up to that.

Yes.. I have to wonder whether aches and pains may have shown up later. Sometimes that is the case in accidents. It was the case in the accident where a minivan tried merging into my right fender. Fortunately, my passengers were ok, and I thought I was ok, but the next day my neck and back were very stiff... and stayed stiff. (Which is when I started chiropractic treatments.) I imagine the perps were probably also wearing their seat belts or they most likely would have been thrown from the car when it hit that fire hydrant.

I wouldn't have imagined the anchor cables standing up to that either. I imagine that the drunk must have hit it just right for the car to climb right up it rather than either snapping the cable or shearing something off the car.

Thinking of kinetic energy... even at 35-40mph, there's a lot, especially if two vehicles hitting each other hit head on. (That's what happened in the 1988 accident I was in where the 1981 Oldsmobile I was driving got totaled & 3A called me to find out if it was a 4 or 6 cylinder car because the hood was jammed down on the engine & partially through the windshield, so they couldn't tell by looking.) I got myself out of that one, but I was bleeding, and did need an ambulance.

I would be shocked if aches and pains didn't show up later. The soft tissues and the skeletons they hang on went through a *lot* in those short moments.

That says a lot, that AAA *couldn't tell* what kind of engine it had.

*nods* The hood was pushed down into the engine and up through the windshield. The front left tire was now parallel to the road, the left front fender pulled back like a yellow banana peel (on the yellow car) toward the driver's door, the "door open, keys in" buzzer sounded (but the door was closed & engine quit), the roof was rippled. It was a mess. That car thoroughly deserved being called totaled in that condition.

It was a 1981 Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme coupe, a good mid-sized car, hit by a full size Ford Econoline van. The van suffered a crumpled fender, flat tire, and broken sidelight (on the crumpled fender).

I'm glad it wasn't your house, or even your rosebushes! What's left of those rosebushes will be destroyed when they pull the car out.

I'm glad the people got out okay! Even though they sound like jerks, I wouldn't wish anybody to get hurt.

I want to see pictures too!

Yep, I figure the bush that was directly under the car (along with the portion of fence that was pretty much directly under the car) is a goner. When I got home the car was gone and the fenceposts were sort of propped up. I wonder how they got that thing out of there.

I too am glad they got out okay.

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