Sorry I’ve been pretty vacant for the last few days, but on Monday evening I got a call that my brother and his fiance were in a terrible car wreck down in Houston. My wife packed my stuff in about 20 minutes while I prepared and then headed out for the 4 hour drive.
It turns out that a woman ran a red light and plowed into the side of my brother’s Toyota 4Runner as he was crossing the intersection. She hit his SUV on the side in the rear, causing the vehicle to spin and then roll multiple times. The police officer later informed us that she admitted she was talking on her cell phone and not paying attention.
As I said, the collision caused the 4Runner to roll several times, and when it finally stopped it had come to rest on it’s hood. This left my brother and future sister-in-law hanging upside down by the seatbelts. Thankfully they were wearing them!
At this point Kirk was smelling gas and Jenny was hanging unconscious. He had to get himself unbuckled, then get her unbuckled and drag her to the back of the vehicle to go out through the rear door since none of the other doors could be opened.
When the fire department and EMS technicians arrived they put both of them on backboards and took them to the hospital where they remained for about 2 days undergoing every test under the sun. Amazingly the only broken bone was in Kirk’s nose, though there were plenty of other soft injuries.
I decided to share this story with you all because it seems like we need constant reminders of why we should drive safely and, at least for me, hearing about a friend or family member going through an ordeal like this usually serves as a wake up call.
So when you are driving around this week please remember to be extra careful, and if someone calls you on your cell phone tell them you will call them back when you aren’t driving.
Here is a video walk through of the vehicle’s remains to go along with the photos.
Holy Hell! :-O
Hope they’re going be okay….
I have been doing more than trusting the green light for a while now. Where I can I am looking both ways if there isn’t a bunch of cross traffic cars already stopped. It was interesting to see all of those air bags deployed, wow!
Oh man, sorry to see this
Glad your okay John :)
My sentiments exactly Chuck.
Kirk and Jenny are doing fine. They are still in enough pain to warrant medication, but they are going to make a full recovery.
John
Yeah, the full contingent of airbags were deployed. We believe that they probably saved lives…
Actually, I might not have been clear enough, but I was not in any way involved in the accident. I just heard about it and then went down to Houston to help take care of Kirk and Jenny…
I am very sorry to hear about that. God bless them! Hopefully, they will be fine soon.
Oh, I swear the first time I read it, it said you where in the back seat..
Hope they had insurance ?
That is just crazy! I know that when I’m driving around I’ll get annoyed at people talking on their cell phones because they’re not really paying attention to what is going on around them. But this just goes to show how horrible it really can be. Thankfully this particular story turned out to be okay, but I don’t think that I’ll be even more unhappy when I see that people are talking on their cell phones now.
Another good thing is that here in California this practice will be somewhat outlawed in less than a year. I sure do hope that it will be heavily enforced!
The car looks in horrible condition, thankfully the travelers escaped with minor injury. This incident once again put the importance of putting the safety belts. One can imagine that the fearful results, had been Jhon’s brother and to be sister in law not wearing the safety belts.
I was also involved in a dreaded accident, which happened when the car was traveling with speed on highway and the driver’s attention was lost for few seconds, when he picked up the mobile phone, to read the incoming message. I feel trying to read the incoming message is more dangerous as it completely takes away one’s attention from the road. And few moments of inattention are enough when the car is speeding.