*** The Rocket Scientist ***
The Arizona Highway Patrol came upon a pile of smoldering metal embedded in the side of a cliff 125 feet above the road at the apex of a curve. The wreckage resembled the site of an airplane crash, but was a car. The type of car was unidentifiable at the scene. The lab finally figured out what it was and what had happened. It seems that a guy had somehow gotten hold of a JATO unit (Jet-Assisted-Take-Off ... actually a solid-fule rocket) that is used to give heavy military transport planes an extra "push" for taking off from short airfields. He had driven his Chevy Impala out into the desert and found a long, straight, stretch of road. Then he attached the JATO unit to his car, jumped in, got up some speed and fired off the JATO.
The facts as best as could be determined are that the operator of the 1967 Impala hit JATO ignition at a distance approximately four miles from the crash site. This was established by the prominent scorched and melted asphalt at that location. The JATO, if operating properly, would have reached maximum thrust within five seconds, causing the Chevy to reach speeds well in excess of 350 mph and continuing at full power for an additional 20-25 seconds.
The driver, soon to be pilot, most likely would have experienced G-forces usually reserved for dogfighting F-14 jocks under full afterburners, basically causing him to become insignificant for the remainder of the event. However, the automobile remained on the straight highway for about 2.5 miles (15-20 seconds) before the driver applied and completely melted the brakes, blowing the tires, and leaving thick rubber marks on the road surface, then becoming airborne for an additional 1.4 miles and impacting the cliff face at a height of 125 feet, leaving a blackened crater three feet deep in the rock.
Most of the drivers remains were not recoverable; however, small fragments of bone, teeth, and hair were extracted from the crater and fingernail and bone shards were removed from a piece of debris believed to be a portion of the steering wheel.
Thanks to Lou P. for bringing this to my attention.
*** The Soccer Award ***
On rare ocasions awards are given to family members who were not actually killed by their adventure. Michael Burstein deserves this distinction because on the same day that he achieved his goal of making the Hauppauge High School Varsity Soccer Team. He forgot his Snapple. As he realized this he attempted a Uey on his bicycle, slipped on sand and crashed head first toward a rather large concrete curb. He was able to break his fall by using his collar bone. He also broke his collar bone and for this he will be out of commission for his first varsity season. Oh well, there's always next year.
Love you anyway, Dad
Glad to be Alive, by Steve Burstein, 1/31/98
Three days have passed since my family and I nearly perished in our sleep, and hardly a moment goes by that I’m not thinking how glad I am to be alive. I tell almost everyone what happened, not to reaffirm our ignorance, but to pass the education that I came by the hard way. Telling how we almost died may save a life. Please don’t stop now.
It was Wednesday morning, about 4:00 a.m., my wife Gail woke me from a sound sleep. I was not fully coherent but I remember her telling me that the carbon monoxide (CO) detector had gone off in the basement, she tried to reset it but it came back on. I said, "this is serious", went down two flights of stairs to the basement, opened the windows, checked the alarm which was reading close to 100ppm. I thought, maybe a branch fell on the chimney cap, so I went outside with my big flashlight, but didn’t see any damage. Then I called LILCO’s emergency gas leak number, because I believed that my gas fired boiler was the source of the problem. The dispatcher said they would send someone, but didn’t offer any other advice. After that, I went downstairs again and checked the boiler’s stovepipe. I discovered that chimney debris had clogged the exhaust and the boiler was venting into the house. So I cleared the blockage and with the windows open the Carbon Monoxide level quickly returned to 0, which is where I like it. The LILCO guy arrived with his gas meter on, after determining it was safe to proceed, he came in and removed about 4 gallons of debris from my stove pipe and chimney, tuned up my burner, suggested that I get my chimney cleaned and left.
I thought that we handled the emergency pretty well. But, as I found out later in the day, we did most things wrong. So we are very very very lucky to be here. Let’s take a closer look.
As my friend Ken Smalley the fireman informed me:
In a Carbon Monoxide emergency, get your family out of the house as quickly as possible and call the fire department from a neighbor’s house.
Gail could have been overcome with carbon monoxide while she was downstairs resetting the alarm. In that case she would have died right there and we would have followed in our sleep. Then we both went downstairs, again risking the survival of our family with a similar deadly scenario.
I called LILCO, again a mistake, the dispatcher didn’t tell me to get my family out of the house and it took a good 30 minutes to respond. The fire department would probably responded in less than 10 minutes.
I hardly noticed that LILCO stopped coming to service my boiler each fall. But now I will make sure it’s done yearly.
I purchased a carbon monoxide detector because Ken was looking for one and I figured it couldn’t hurt.
It saved our lives. I should have gotten it because it’s a necessary and prudent measure of protection.
Keep in mind that the poisonous exhaust from a gas-fired boiler has no odor, color or smell, but loaded with carbon monoxide, it can kill you DEAD, VERY DEAD.
Please learn from my near death experience:
If you don’t have a carbon monoxide detector get two. If you have one, get another. The model that I have is supposed to be very good, it’s a Nighthawk, and costs about $35 at Price Cosco. Don’t make the mistakes that I did. In a carbon monoxide emergency – call the fire department.
Service your boiler and chimney yearly. Tell your friends.
It’s good to be alive. We are all happy to be here.
Regards,
Steve, Gail, Dawn, Michael, David