Note: Bill's Porsche 944 Site is not responsible for the content of banners displayed above. http://www.oocities.org/MotorCity/1760/agoodcar.html Nobody...with a good car...needs to worry about nuthin' -- Ministry ========================================================== When you drive a car off a cliff and almost lose your life, you get a new appreciation for every sunrise, for the blue of the sky, the green of the trees, and the beauty of sunsets. "Every meal is a banquet, and every day a celebration." -- Bill This is a story about a good car, and a lucky driver. by Bill Underwood On Wednesday, September 26th of 1995, I was driving toward home, returning from the freelance writing job at PC World/Macworld in San Francisco. I attended the Seybold publishing show that day, had dinner with a vendor and my editor, and got a ride back to my car, parked near Bryant and 2nd. I take off, cruising 280 down the Penninsula, and exit at Hwy. 84, at Woodside. This is a route I know very well, since I have literally driven this road thousands of times before--many of those times at rates of speed that would shock most people, and terrify more than a few. But tonight, it's late--almost midnight--and I know all about deer and how slick the road surface can get when a little dew settles. So this time I am actually taking it easy. Good thing, too, because things could have been a lot worse. I'm on Hwy. 84, and have passed through the town of Woodside, and I've just started up the hill, on the twisting ascent toward Skyline Boulevard (Hwy. 35). My destination is home, in the coastal town of San Gregorio (past La Honda) about 16 miles away. Between the flatlands of Silicon Valley and home, the road consists of curves, hills, and hairpins. Common sights are the occasional deer in the road, fallen rocks and tree limbs. I ease up the grade, through a few corners, then accelerate a little through the one "straightaway" on the Bay side of the hill. Third gear...fourth gear...then back off the gas, brake and downshift to third at the first gnarly hairpin--a decreasing radius curve that is often the site of wrecks. Clear the apex, accelerate a little, but not too hard now... The next piece of road is somewhat straight, with one hollow in it that you cannot see into until you round a corner. I come through that spot, and there it is: the frightful, instantaneous gleam of a pair of green eyes in the road, locked into mine. As those eyes flicker and stare into my high beams, time is frozen into one long moment of eternity. Something bad is about to happen. I clipped the animal with a dull thunk. Almost missed her, dammit. But I yanked the wheel hard to the left. Bad move. Especially since I stabbed the brakes real hard just then, too. I recall hearing the wheels squeal as they scrubbed sideways. It's not too easy to get a Porsche 944 to do this, as it's one of the best handling and evenly balanced production sports cars ever produced. But it can be done. I've driven this car for one month short of ten years and know every quirk, every sound, and every aspect of it. I distinctly remember puzzling at that side squeal, since the last and only time I've ever heard it was in an 80 mph emergency braking incident on a freeway in New Hampshire, trying to avoid greasing a German Shepherd pup that had sauntered across my path. I missed the dog, and in the process made the rear end wiggle around in a fishtailing motion. Forward momentum was maintained and the car never swapped ends. But this time, things were a lot different. I ran out of road before I could straighten the car out, and the next curve was coming on me fast considering the sideways attitude I was getting under control, albeit slowly... As I left the road surface at about 35-40 mph, I hit a large redwood tree with the right front corner of the car, which instantly opened up the passenger's front fender like jaws of life buzzing through steel as a hot chainsaw might pass through butter. Simple Newtonian physics demanded that as a result of this action, the reaction force was to propel me at about a 45-degree left, where I proceeded to catch air for the next 50 vertical feet until I wadded the car into what I later found to be a fallen redwood tree. Oh, yes, on the way, I chopped down a 6 inch diameter tree of unknown type about four feet above ground level, and passed fully over another downed redwood which lay at roughly chest level. I remember hearing stuff like 2 x 4's popping and breaking all around me, and saw a few shards of tree bits hit the windshield. On the way down, I held onto the wheel, and screamed "NOOOOOOOooooooooooooo....." The impact was very hard, and occurred with a distinct CRUNCH sound that was, ummm, sickening. Rather like a watermelon hitting pavement from a few stories up. Everything in the back of the car ended up on the dash, on me, and in the front seats. The sunroof had popped open on the way down, apparently, since the inside of the car was littered with branches, twigs, redwood needles and little cones. The stuff was in my hair, on me, and in my shirt pocket (I still have that particular tiny redwood cone, from my shirt pocket.) Silence. Utter deathly silence. It could have been the quiet of my grave, and the complete stillness after two seconds of such extreme intensity was actually a little spooky. The strong, pungent, all-pervasive smell of freshly cut wood impressed itself upon me and forced full command of my senses. I reached for the key and actually restarted the motor. I put it in reverse and gave it the gas. I heard the tires spin...who knows what I was thinking. Realizing I was not backing out of this one, I shut the motor off and left it in reverse. After all, I was parked on a downslope. I pulled the e-brake to ON. I suppose I was on autopilot. No need to set the brake; this car was not going anyplace (in fact it would lie here for two days until being recovered) but at the time, what did I know? It would not be until tomorrow morning that I'd see the full extent of what had happened: the front end was impaled squarely into a fallen redwood about 3 feet in diameter. Slowly, a sad, heavy, desperately sickening feeling began to overcome me, but I remember clearing that aside and staying calm. Next, with my hands, I felt my arms, and then my legs. I extended my arms and moved them. I wiggled my toes and moved my feet. I took deep breaths. I moved my head side to side. My right shoulder hurts a little, but I'm OK. Satisfied that I had no bones popping through my limbs or into my ribs, I remember trying to detect the smell of fuel vapors; there were none. I turned the dome light on, and looked in the rear view mirror. My glasses were gone, but my face was intact. I found the glasses under my feet, twisted into a mess. Retrieving them, I bend them into shape--mostly--and put them on. Then I tried the door: jammed. I unfastened my seat belt, and slid forward into the wheel&endash;after all, the car was canted downward at an angle. I moved over into the passenger's seat, climbing over the center console and gearshift. I remember feeling a big hump in the floor under my feet, pushing upwards, where it used to be flat. That door was jammed, too, but I could unlatch and open it very slightly. I slide back into my seat and try the sunroof. It opens about 2 inches, but is just as jammed as the doors are. Funny, none of the glass popped. All right then. I'm trapped, I'm not bleeding, and the car is not leaking fuel as far as I can tell. Nobody has seen me, and I am alone. I must enter some kind of safety shut down sequence, now that I am satisfied I am alive and not seriously injured, and that help is not on the way: I pass out. Slumped over the center console, I awaken later. I'm cold. My right shoulder hurts. I turn the dome light on. It's 4:02 am. I search the car for extra clothes I know I have, and find them. I put on another shirt, a sweatshirt over that, and a hat. Since the passenger's door opened a little when I tried it earlier, I decide this is my best bet. No, I never, ever, considered breaking a window to get out. This is my Porsche, after all--it was my 30th birthday present to myself almost 10 years ago--break a window!!?? Besides, I did not know it was totaled. Eventually, I freed myself by powering the door open with all my might, wincing at the pain in my shoulder, and squeezing myself out. I rip through a thatch of branches and shattered tree limbs. Dazed, I stumble a bit getting out. My right shoulder is way tweeked, and I feel it, move it. At least it's not broken, but something's dislocated. I press on it to try and pop anything back into place, but that just hurts more. So I begin to crawl up and out of the canyon on a moonless night. The slope is steep, and the ground is soft. My feet sink deep into redwood needles and twigs. I reach the pavement, and stand there a second. I look to the left, which is uphill, then to the right, the direction I came from. I decide to walk uphill, so here I am, in my cowboy boots, with dark clothes and no flashlight, and doubtless still in some stage of shock. A few cars go by. I try to flag them down, but nobody stops. Two big redwood hauler trucks go by, and they don't stop, either. I walked up Hwy. 84 to the top (about 2- 3 miles) and found an unlocked car at the garage next to Alice's Restaurant, where I know the owner. A four door, Ford Gran Torino. Kinda of like checking into a palace, actually... I get a few hours sleep in the back seat, until I hear the garage open at about 9am, and the radio inside the shop starts to blast. Went and found the owner, and we took the tow truck down the hill to the crash site. We could not find it right away, because it was pretty buried in dead tree stuff. I find the spot I crawled out, and go there and stand on the berm of the road, at the exact spot I left the road. My friend Barry (somebody not easily fazed) walked up behind me, as I stood on the berm looking down the canyon, at my car. In a serious tone of amazement, he stutters "Goddamn it, Bill...How is it that you're still alive?" I said nothing at first, and then simply told him it had to be my Guardian Angel. I make my way down to the car, and the closer I get, the worse it looks. The front end is completely dusted. The passenger side front fender is peeled back to the side window. I look back along the path the car traveled. Large branches and a broken tree trunk halfway up litter the whole flight path from road to resting place. Shit, I think, I actually chopped down a tree while ballistic. Looking into the engine compartment, I see that my two-week old, brand spanking new radiator now looks like a potato chip, curved around the fan assembly. Hoses and belts are smashed up against the timing belt cover, and green radiator fluid leaks out of the upper radiator hose, which is sliced. The engine compartment, like the rest of the car, is partially buried in redwood duff, some of it so fine it looks like it went through a blender. Both aluminum control arms are broken in half, and the front wheels hang loose from their Bilstein Sport struts. Barry joins me. He walks around the car and just says "Maybe it's a total." I just place my head on the crumpled hood, and know my Porsche is gone. I say goodbye with a tear in my eye. I compose myself, and know it's a good thing I'm alive. I managed to open the passenger's door, again with great difficulty and pain, and reached in for some personal items, like my mail, and an instant camera I kept in the car for use in photographing possible accident scenes for legal protection. So I used the camera to capture the last resting place for my beloved Porsche. After taking some pictures, I took the Skip Barber Racing School booklet and course schedule out of my pile of now scattered mail, and placed it on the front dash, in front of the steering wheel. Even in a disaster, I can keep my sense of humor. Two days later, we got the car out. A wadded hunk of scrap steel. A few performance parts were salvaged, like the Autothority chip and Borla exhaust, which live on in the 944 I drive today. After almost 139,000 fun touring miles in a car I worked hard to get and hard to keep, I drove it to the very cusp between life and death. The car went onward to PorscHeaven, and I am still walking this earth. I'm disappointed about the car, but happy about the final outcome: a car can be replaced, but there's only one of me. For two weeks after the wreck, people came up to me saying "Wow, was that YOUR car I saw getting dragged out of the canyon the other day? Can't be...you're still walking." Yes folks, it was my car. And more than a few of my neighbors got to see it come out of the canyon, since to extract the car, one lane of Hwy. 84 had to be closed by the highway department for awhile so the tow truck could get at it, stopping traffic in the process. What a finale to a great car. Besides hurting my shoulder and a few minor bruises, the cut on my left index finger (now a scar) was the only blood I shed in the wreck. The tiny scar, the tiny redwood cone from my shirt pocket, and the driver's side popup headlamp are all that remain today. I saved the headlamp assembly, having found it another 50 feet down the canyon, beyond the crash site. Amazingly, the headlight is intact, and it works -- I put a 12V battery to it as a test. That headlamp now resides in my bedroom, complete with a brush of redwood rash that decorates the shiny black paint finish... "PORSCHE. THERE IS NO SUBSTITUTE." Tom Cruise, from the movie "Risky Business" The author urges you to wear your seatbelt. This story is copyright (c) by bill_underwood@oocities.com, 1996. For republishing rights, please contact me. You are crash survivor since this page was originally posted on 20 September 1996. Tree cutting, frame tweeking, canyon-launching and belief in Guardian Angels by Bill Underwood Back to: Bill's Porsche 944 page