Police: ‘It’s amazing’ driver survived 142 mph crash

[n2doc]

By Melissa Jenco



A Shorewood man was driving 142 mph when he rolled his car and landed in a Naperville yard last month, according to police.




The 36-year-old, of the 500 block of Ca Crest Drive now faces additional charges of reckless driving, improper lane usage and speeding 142 mph in a 40 mph zone on top of the original charges of DUI and driving too fast for conditions, Sgt. Gregg Bell said Thursday.

The man was driving an orange 2008 Dodge Charger eastbound on Ogden Avenue near Rickert Drive about 12:52 a.m. Jan. 10 when police say the car left the road and struck both a traffic standard and the curb, causing it to lift off the ground. The car then struck another curb and again lost contact with the ground before rolling over and hitting a billboard post and a fence.

The Charger ultimately came to rest in a yard in the 500 block of Chamberlain Lane, where police found the driver trapped in the car and the vehicle’s dislodged engine and a tire in a nearby parking lot, police said. Firefighters extricated the driver and transported him to Edward Hospital with minor injuries.

http://triblocal.com/naperville/2012/02/16/police-its-amazing-driver-survived-142-mph-crash/

[Yo_Mama]

1. The driver should buy lottery tickets

Or maybe work off some of his sentence doing "use your seatbelt" presentations at high schools.

That is just amazing. From the looks of the car, the driver should have been hamburger.

[mazzarro]

2. Ironically the accident is an illustration of Dodge Charger's safety features -- n/t

[snooper2]

3. It lost it's hemi :(

I'll give $400 for the block and heads

[COLGATE4]

4. There used to be a saying that

"God protects fools and drunks". May be something to it, after all...

[JHB]

9. God and mandated safety features...

...twern't God who put air bags/safety belts/crumple zones, etc. in cars.

[Maine-ah]

11. the reason many drunk drivers survive

is because they're drunk. They're body is relaxed. At least that what an EMT told me a long time ago.

[Old and In the Way]

5. Wow....

I guess we can conclude he got to V_r, but never attained V_s?

[yellowcanine]

6. 40 mph zone. Oy vey. I hope he at least has the decency to pay to replace the ruined shrubbery.

It is the least he could do.

Blood alcohol level of 0.2? Wow. I didn't know that was even possible.

On edit, I see that 0.2 is not all that high. There have been BAC levels as high as 1.0 apparently. Usually people don't remember anything when it gets that high though.

[jsmirman]

14. I don't think you have this right at all

I'm pretty sure a BAC of .2 is very high.

Eh - I had it wrong, too - 1.0 means that 1% of all your blood is alcohol (death).

Apparently, around .45 you are likely to die.

I don't think anyone has ever been measured at 1.0.

[Javaman]

7. Not really all that amazing...

Once upon a time, in my primordial days, I was a volunteer fireman in NY. (in Nassau County Long Island)

Many a time we would respond to accidents on the Northern state parkway.

Morons driving WAY over the limit with 4 sheets to the wind.

One in particular comes to mind.

it was estimated by the police that he had hit the corner of the bridge at roughly 120 mph.

the car was nothing but bits of metal. it had completely disintergrated.

Over on the shoulder was a guy. I thought he was a witness. Not a scratch on him.

He was the driver. Later on we found out, the guy basically had a pharmacy in his system on top of alcohol.

FYI, the engine block was found 1/4 away from the wreck.

I had seen things back then. Some weird shit, like what I have described above and really bad shit, that will still pop up in nightmares from time to time.

[HopeHoops]

8. We saw a car flip onto its top coming back from Ocean City, MD about 30 years ago.

It was something like a Vega. The driver and his passenger were wasted and the passenger was stuck and looked dead. All the driver was concerned about was getting the beer cans out of the car so the cops wouldn't know he'd been drinking. It took about 10 of us to keep the car upright enough to avoid the passenger from being any more squished than he was. He suddenly came out of it and smashed his way out through the front windshield - and was walking.

Before he did that, the driver took off into the corn fields and my father yelled at him to get back there to help lift the car. The guy just yelled, "I gotta take a shit" and took off. That was a pretty nasty scene, but there is some truth to the concept that drunks usually survive even if they kill someone else. When your body is limp it is less likely to be as heavily damaged and most of the people who get killed by the drunks are alert and tense up in the last seconds.

[dmallind]

10. That improper lane usage citation will show him the error of his ways! nt

[bullwinkle428]

12. Holy shit...I drove through that intersection last Sunday when I was in the area!

Just checked it out on Google maps. It's a spot where the road makes a sweeping bend, so it's easy to see where someone drunk off their ass might lose it completely.

[uncle ray]

13. i'm thinking he wasn't going 142.

i just had to google the location to see. i'm skeptical. no doubt he was going very fast, over 100, probably. i think when he hit the curb under full throttle and went airborne and the tires left the ground, the "indicated" speed quickly spiked as the engine revved with no load. they then retrieve the info about the cars speed from the cars computer and OMG!!! this is just speculation.

[MadHound]

15. The reason he survived was the alcohol in his system

He was nice and relaxed for the impact, like a rag doll. Sober driver wouldn't have been so relaxed and shattered like glass.