On December 29, a driver in Niagara County, New York ended up upside down in a water-filled ditch, pinned in place as police rushed to help. A local bystander reportedly tried breaking the window, but was unable to get the driver out. “Responding deputies arrived on scene and observed a 2009 Honda Fit overturned in the ditch, with the passenger compartment filling with water,” the local police’s statement reads. “The driver and sole occupant, [a] 40 year old… was pinned in the vehicle.”
The Niagara County Sheriff’s Office media release continues, saying “Deputy Virk and Deputy Kennedy entered the ditch and were able to use their department issued rescue tool to break the rear passenger side window, open the door, and pull [the driver] to safety.”
The report states that there were no life-threatening injuries, and that the driver — whom the police say was found to be under the influence of drugs — was then sent to the hospital. He was “charged with a traffic violation and Driving While Ability Impaired by Drugs…[and] released on appearance tickets and remains at the hospital for further treatment.”
Here’s the video of the incident in Wheatfield, NY — an incident that is, to me, total nightmare fuel:
This has been a recurring nightmare for me for years: ending up in an overturned car, underwater. There’s just a terror associated with water rushing in, not knowing how to get out or which way is up or down, and it doesn’t help that I’m a weak swimmer.
Starting today, I’ll be putting that ^hammer into my and my wife’s daily-drivers. I just need to figure out how to fasten it so that, in the event of such a situation, the hammer is easily accessible. I’m all ears if you have a strategy on that.
Anyway, today’s post isn’t about your biggest car fears (ok, it was initially until I found out we’ve already asked that). It’s about your own scariest automobile moment. One of mine is the crash you see above, in which an uninsured motorist in a Chevy Tahoe pulled out in front of me, totaling my beloved 1992 Jeep Cherokee — a vehicle that I later fixed with a fraction of the ~$1,600 payout.
Another one of my scariest moments happened when I was 17 and driving home from my high school girlfriend’s house in the dark. This was in a rural part of Kansas, where a raccoon ran right into the road. I, in my 1998 Jeep Grand Cherokee (shown below) made what I thought was a slight swerve, but what was, in reality, a huge swerve in that top-heavy machine. I lost complete control at about 65 mph, drifting into the oncoming lane, then back to the far right of the road, then back to the far left shoulder; back and forth I hacked away at that steering wheel trying to keep that nose pointing straight, and luckily — thanks in part to lots of practice drifting in snow, mud, and in parking lots, I was able to recover. That would have been catastrophic, without question.
I often remind myself how lucky many of us Americans are to have made it out of our teens. So many of my friends have also had close calls between the age of 16 and 18 (this might make you wonder if we should raise the driving age, but that’s a topic for another day).
Topshot: everett225/depositphotos
