What Was Your Worst Wreck?
Stopped at red traffic light in '87 ZL Fairlane to turn onto road leading to International airport (flying to Italy for work trip) and got collected from behind by a guy in a work ute who had his head below the dash fishing around in the floorwell of his passenger seat trying to pick up a water bottle that was rolling around. Hit at maybe 60-70km/h. Fortunately I did get a quick glimpse of him coming in the rear view mirror and started making attempts to mount the kerb and get away. Also fortunately I had my foot off the pedals when he hit, so while the impact crushed the boot almost flat, the rest of the car was largely untouched. Was a write-off though. Roof panel had started to fold up. No injuries other than minor cuts and abrasions around ankles and feet from pedals and seat mounting hardware.
Yeah I'll bet you lost all fluids, and some solids too!stikrz wrote:The only thing operational was the engine and radio. I lost all fluids.
You sure you didn't mean to say "To this day you can still see 2 turd brown spots on the..."stikrz wrote:To this day you can still see 2 forest green spots on the main bridge...
The only time I have ever had a major accident was last August. It involved a 2008 M5 running into me from the side at around 45mph. My e34 535iM still drives and absorbed the impact reasonably well due to the battery compartment brace under the rear seat, but I've been parting it out. The M5 was utterly totaled.
only accident i was in involving me behind the wheel was in my 88 528e it was actualy a frend of mine that hit me. he was in a 2007 trailblazer and backed into the read panel taking the bumper and tail light with it. we made an agreement that he paid for the current 528e that im driving to not have insuance rates go up. Anyway here's the damage.
if i hadent stomped the gas to try to get out of the way he woulda taken out the drivers side from the front door back.but i got this car from it so it worked out
if i hadent stomped the gas to try to get out of the way he woulda taken out the drivers side from the front door back.but i got this car from it so it worked out
Lee in MD wrote:Yeah I'll bet you lost all fluids, and some solids too!stikrz wrote:The only thing operational was the engine and radio. I lost all fluids.
You sure you didn't mean to say "To this day you can still see 2 turd brown spots on the..."stikrz wrote:To this day you can still see 2 forest green spots on the main bridge...
I mentioned my headlight was about 100 yards behind me right? Many solids came off that car. it was mangled.I'm glad it wasn't t topped. 
When the car was spinning there were parts flyin off of it VERY quickly and everywhere. My buddy was doing 45 so he was nowhere near when I wrecked.I had a 1996 M3 Estoril/Modena with every option you could get. It was beautiful but it had over 115k miles. I was selling it and had a tentative deal with someone. I went to work for a day at a new location and was on my way home. I was going about forty when I went through a stop sign (I didn't see it) and hit a Ford Explorer. I hit it so hard that I totaled the Ford (the woman was just driving it home from picking it up new from the dealer) and the M3. The impact was so great that the transmission tunnel was bent on the M. The good part was that I got more from the insurance company than I was selling it for and ended up getting my M5.
What I was laughing at was the way you stated "I lost all fluids" which popped into my mind an image of you sitting there in the driver's seat with a "wha jus happened??" look while your "fluids" slowly soaked your pantsstikrz wrote:Lee in MD wrote:Yeah I'll bet you lost all fluids, and some solids too!stikrz wrote:The only thing operational was the engine and radio. I lost all fluids.
You sure you didn't mean to say "To this day you can still see 2 turd brown spots on the..."stikrz wrote:To this day you can still see 2 forest green spots on the main bridge...
I'm pretty damn sure I would have "lost all fluids" and maybe some "solids" had I gone through what you did!
July 1963, my mom's new (6,000 mile) Ford Galaxie 500 shown here several days after being center punched by a freight train. I was seventeen and life was good! I was on the way to pick up a friend and then on the way to a pre-season high school football team meeting about 6:00 in the afternoon.,
The engineer later told my father that he was traveling about 40 mph as he was passing through an unincorporated area behind a textile mill. The tracks paralleled the street. A 90 degree turn had to be made to cross the tracks. The space between the street and tracks was filled with storage trailers lined up to the crossing which had a light and lift arm. I have no memory of what happened with the signal or when the train hit me. The car was knocked back into the right side light pole destroying it and three car and two trucks parked in a space on the outside of the 90 degree turn onto the track. I wound up in the back seat.
As I tumbled in the car I hit my head on the passenger side door pillar, punching a hole in the left side of my skull between the ear and temple. A nurse happened to be in the car behind me and held my brain in until help arrived. On arrival at the ER, a neurosurgeon was found (just getting into his car to leave after another surgery) and was able to treat me.
Prognosis was if I survived, most of my right side would be paralyzed. Stayed in a coma for 2 weeks and was released after another 4 weeks. Started my senior year on time, went back to hospital at Christmas vacation. to have the 3 pins in my right shoulder removed and a plate of sorts installed to cover the very soft spot in my skull. I never had any paralysis or other problems, except for a bit of change in my speech pattern.
God gave me another chance that day-- I would have been crushed in the seat if the seat belts were on, I took them out that day and washed them while detailing the car, had not reinstalled them.--- there was a nurse directly behind me in traffic-- the only neurosurgeon was caught at the hospital (pre-cell phones)-- I was back to almost 100% in 3 months. After this train/car incident, four other collisions, killing 5 instantly, occurred at this same crossing and two others within about 8 miles of each other in the next 3 years. The second house my wife and I bought was owned by the husband of one of those victims,
Marshall
Survived a train wreck...Marshall wrote:
July 1963, my mom's new (6,000 mile) Ford Galaxie 500 shown here several days after being center punched by a freight train. I was seventeen and life was good! I was on the way to pick up a friend and then on the way to a pre-season high school football team meeting about 6:00 in the afternoon.,
The engineer later told my father that he was traveling about 40 mph as he was passing through an unincorporated area behind a textile mill. The tracks paralleled the street. A 90 degree turn had to be made to cross the tracks. The space between the street and tracks was filled with storage trailers lined up to the crossing which had a light and lift arm. I have no memory of what happened with the signal or when the train hit me. The car was knocked back into the right side light pole destroying it and three car and two trucks parked in a space on the outside of the 90 degree turn onto the track. I wound up in the back seat.
As I tumbled in the car I hit my head on the passenger side door pillar, punching a hole in the left side of my skull between the ear and temple. A nurse happened to be in the car behind me and held my brain in until help arrived. On arrival at the ER, a neurosurgeon was found (just getting into his car to leave after another surgery) and was able to treat me.
Prognosis was if I survived, most of my right side would be paralyzed. Stayed in a coma for 2 weeks and was released after another 4 weeks. Started my senior year on time, went back to hospital at Christmas vacation. to have the 3 pins in my right shoulder removed and a plate of sorts installed to cover the very soft spot in my skull. I never had any paralysis or other problems, except for a bit of change in my speech pattern.
God gave me another chance that day-- I would have been crushed in the seat if the seat belts were on, I took them out that day and washed them while detailing the car, had not reinstalled them.--- there was a nurse directly behind me in traffic-- the only neurosurgeon was caught at the hospital (pre-cell phones)-- I was back to almost 100% in 3 months. After this train/car incident, four other collisions, killing 5 instantly, occurred at this same crossing and two others within about 8 miles of each other in the next 3 years. The second house my wife and I bought was owned by the husband of one of those victims,
Marshall
Well, I'm surely not going to top Marshall's accident, but I will throw out a BMW one.
In my first E12, nominally my wife's, but the best car I ever owned, I swear nothing ever broke in it. Anyway, we were on vacation in Vegas, as we had many times before, with a mere 325k on the car, stopped at a red light on Boulder with no traffic around at all. When I see a pickup approaching in the mirror. And not slowing down. My wife says I had time to get "Oh sh" out before he hit us. And that's not an abbreviation, I didn't have time to get the whole word out. Anger was my first reaction, but the guy was appologetic, just another SOB on his way to work at 9:30 at night. I had some whiplash for a few months, and limited (but not by much) movement for a couple of years and my wife was uninjuried. But the car was an insurance total. Of course owing to the infamous "diving board" US spec bumpers, we drove home 700 miles from Vegas after breaking into a misaligned trunk, and the pickup went off on the end of a tow truck having lost all fluids and all the sheetmetal forward of the doors. And the poor E12, it only saw another 60,000 miles after that.
In my first E12, nominally my wife's, but the best car I ever owned, I swear nothing ever broke in it. Anyway, we were on vacation in Vegas, as we had many times before, with a mere 325k on the car, stopped at a red light on Boulder with no traffic around at all. When I see a pickup approaching in the mirror. And not slowing down. My wife says I had time to get "Oh sh" out before he hit us. And that's not an abbreviation, I didn't have time to get the whole word out. Anger was my first reaction, but the guy was appologetic, just another SOB on his way to work at 9:30 at night. I had some whiplash for a few months, and limited (but not by much) movement for a couple of years and my wife was uninjuried. But the car was an insurance total. Of course owing to the infamous "diving board" US spec bumpers, we drove home 700 miles from Vegas after breaking into a misaligned trunk, and the pickup went off on the end of a tow truck having lost all fluids and all the sheetmetal forward of the doors. And the poor E12, it only saw another 60,000 miles after that.
A truely amazing story. Thanks for sharing.Marshall wrote:
July 1963, my mom's new (6,000 mile) Ford Galaxie 500 shown here several days after being center punched by a freight train. I was seventeen and life was good! I was on the way to pick up a friend and then on the way to a pre-season high school football team meeting about 6:00 in the afternoon.,
The engineer later told my father that he was traveling about 40 mph as he was passing through an unincorporated area behind a textile mill. The tracks paralleled the street. A 90 degree turn had to be made to cross the tracks. The space between the street and tracks was filled with storage trailers lined up to the crossing which had a light and lift arm. I have no memory of what happened with the signal or when the train hit me. The car was knocked back into the right side light pole destroying it and three car and two trucks parked in a space on the outside of the 90 degree turn onto the track. I wound up in the back seat.
As I tumbled in the car I hit my head on the passenger side door pillar, punching a hole in the left side of my skull between the ear and temple. A nurse happened to be in the car behind me and held my brain in until help arrived. On arrival at the ER, a neurosurgeon was found (just getting into his car to leave after another surgery) and was able to treat me.
Prognosis was if I survived, most of my right side would be paralyzed. Stayed in a coma for 2 weeks and was released after another 4 weeks. Started my senior year on time, went back to hospital at Christmas vacation. to have the 3 pins in my right shoulder removed and a plate of sorts installed to cover the very soft spot in my skull. I never had any paralysis or other problems, except for a bit of change in my speech pattern.
God gave me another chance that day-- I would have been crushed in the seat if the seat belts were on, I took them out that day and washed them while detailing the car, had not reinstalled them.--- there was a nurse directly behind me in traffic-- the only neurosurgeon was caught at the hospital (pre-cell phones)-- I was back to almost 100% in 3 months. After this train/car incident, four other collisions, killing 5 instantly, occurred at this same crossing and two others within about 8 miles of each other in the next 3 years. The second house my wife and I bought was owned by the husband of one of those victims,
Marshall
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grey ghost
- Posts: 3038
- Joined: Feb 12, 2006 12:00 PM
- Location: Falls Church VA
In 2002, while riding my Ducati in the roling/curvy hills of Westchester County NY, some biscuit-hole in a van felt the need for speed.
While driving through a right turn curve, he was unable to keep his piece of ISH van on his side of the road and drifted over. I had to pick the bike up out of a left hand curve to avoid him and still try to make the curve.
Well I didn't make it and ended up in the woods with my right thigh bone sticking out through my pants. The bike was totalled and I never saw it again.
I was in the hospital for about eight weeks and had roughly ten surgeries which entailed opening the wound to clean it and closing it back up repeatedly. These types of injuries are highy prone to infection and amputation.
The killer is that three months earlier I was T-boned on the same bike and had my left lower leg smashed and my left upper arm pushed up through the socket into my neck. Suffice to say that I was not fully healed from the first accident. Luckily I didn't reinjure anything, I just added to the tally.
Niether accident was my fault. Wrong place wrong time type of thing.
But I have to say that the helicopter ride was nice.
While driving through a right turn curve, he was unable to keep his piece of ISH van on his side of the road and drifted over. I had to pick the bike up out of a left hand curve to avoid him and still try to make the curve.
Well I didn't make it and ended up in the woods with my right thigh bone sticking out through my pants. The bike was totalled and I never saw it again.
I was in the hospital for about eight weeks and had roughly ten surgeries which entailed opening the wound to clean it and closing it back up repeatedly. These types of injuries are highy prone to infection and amputation.
The killer is that three months earlier I was T-boned on the same bike and had my left lower leg smashed and my left upper arm pushed up through the socket into my neck. Suffice to say that I was not fully healed from the first accident. Luckily I didn't reinjure anything, I just added to the tally.
Niether accident was my fault. Wrong place wrong time type of thing.
But I have to say that the helicopter ride was nice.
Took me a minute to figure out what the hell you were talking about.Son of a wrote: Well there's your problem right there. Anything even remotely associated with GM is a POS these days.
I kept that license plate and put it on my e39 as a keepsake. It has a crease and some of the paint scraped off of it.
grey ghost wrote:In 2002, while riding my Ducati in the roling/curvy hills of Westchester County NY, some biscuit-hole in a van felt the need for speed.
While driving through a right turn curve, he was unable to keep his piece of ISH van on his side of the road and drifted over. I had to pick the bike up out of a left hand curve to avoid him and still try to make the curve.
Well I didn't make it and ended up in the woods with my right thigh bone sticking out through my pants. The bike was totalled and I never saw it again.
I was in the hospital for about eight weeks and had roughly ten surgeries which entailed opening the wound to clean it and closing it back up repeatedly. These types of injuries are highy prone to infection and amputation.
The killer is that three months earlier I was T-boned on the same bike and had my left lower leg smashed and my left upper arm pushed up through the socket into my neck. Suffice to say that I was not fully healed from the first accident. Luckily I didn't reinjure anything, I just added to the tally.
Niether accident was my fault. Wrong place wrong time type of thing.
But I have to say that the helicopter ride was nice.
Do you still ride? You have some pretty long (good) odds now! This story makes me hurt just thinking about the injuries.
I started to say that you were lucky, but there is no luck, only His grace sparing you... make use of it!
I rode bikes on the street, drag raced them, and spent many hours with 2-strokes in the mountains with my son and friends.. In almost thirty years of riding-- never hurt myself other than some scrapes. In that time, I lost three friends to accidents on bikes-- watched 2 of them die. Still have the itch... and still have a basket case shovelhead in the garage.
Marshall
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grey ghost
- Posts: 3038
- Joined: Feb 12, 2006 12:00 PM
- Location: Falls Church VA
Although my wife loved the bike, she has made riding for me a spectator sport only and I'm OK with that. She was pregnant with my first daughter at the time to boot.Marshall wrote:grey ghost wrote:In 2002, while riding my Ducati in the roling/curvy hills of Westchester County NY, some biscuit-hole in a van felt the need for speed.
While driving through a right turn curve, he was unable to keep his piece of ISH van on his side of the road and drifted over. I had to pick the bike up out of a left hand curve to avoid him and still try to make the curve.
Well I didn't make it and ended up in the woods with my right thigh bone sticking out through my pants. The bike was totalled and I never saw it again.
I was in the hospital for about eight weeks and had roughly ten surgeries which entailed opening the wound to clean it and closing it back up repeatedly. These types of injuries are highy prone to infection and amputation.
The killer is that three months earlier I was T-boned on the same bike and had my left lower leg smashed and my left upper arm pushed up through the socket into my neck. Suffice to say that I was not fully healed from the first accident. Luckily I didn't reinjure anything, I just added to the tally.
Niether accident was my fault. Wrong place wrong time type of thing.
But I have to say that the helicopter ride was nice.
Do you still ride? You have some pretty long (good) odds now! This story makes me hurt just thinking about the injuries.
I started to say that you were lucky, but there is no luck, only His grace sparing you... make use of it!
I rode bikes on the street, drag raced them, and spent many hours with 2-strokes in the mountains with my son and friends.. In almost thirty years of riding-- never hurt myself other than some scrapes. In that time, I lost three friends to accidents on bikes-- watched 2 of them die. Still have the itch... and still have a basket case shovelhead in the garage.
Marshall
I too have lost a few friends and still have the itch.
The real killer is that after the first accident, the group of guys I rode with started to ride on Sunday mornings only. We would meet at a local diner about 5am, eat breakfast and ride til about 10am and then put the bikes away til the next weekend. My accident happened about 6:30am that sunday morning.
So with strike 2 on the record, I called it quites. Not to mention the amount of titanium used to put me back together could fund the purchase for a few TCD S2 Turbos.
Maybe I'll rip the titanium plate out of my right leg and trade it in. My car can use a turbo setup. Its no longer fast enough. Maybe I'll score a set of euro bumpers in the process.