I’ll warn you, this gnarly crash story made me physically uncomfortable. But it contains some important safety lessons on how to survive a car crash. Someone asked Reddit /r/Cars the following, “Crazy Car Stories: Let’s hear ’em?” and another user weighed in with a wild crash and a freak accident that nearly killed them.

They started by admitting, “I didn’t think I’d ever get to tell this story,” admitting they truly thought they weren’t going to survive. It was a cold February, just after their 16th birthday. But the weather couldn’t get them down: they had their own truck. This teen had spent “most of my 15th year” rebuilding a vintage 1987 Ford Ranger with a stick shift transmission. It shared a chassis with a Bronco II, and its driver was quick to call the 4WD “tall and beautiful.”

Because they had a vehicle, it was their responsibility to drive their little sister to school. So after they both got ready, the two hopped in the truck and put a CD in the CD player. They let the truck warm up for a bit, then hit the “4 wheel drive” button. Nothing happened. The amateur mechanic realized the front axle hadn’t engaged at all. They decided they would fix it when they got home.

“We took off. The truck slid a little but I was able to recover, then it happened.”

Things went south when the “rear ended started to slip.” With the truck moving sideways, the novice driver tired again to recover but accidentally overcorrected. The truck spun across the icy road, finally hitting the shoulder and catching traction in the un-driven snow there. The problem was the road ended in a 20-foot drop-off. And the truck toppled over the edge.

“Unable to do anything I held my sister in place.” The driver will never forget the radio blaring (band: Disturbed) “She want meeeeeee!!!!” And as the truck flipped, time slowed down. “The rolls were in slow motion as I see the fear on her face still this day.”

The two of them slammed into the ground at the bottom of the cliff. Upside down. “Once the truck finally stopped rolling. It was upside down in the snow and gas was leaking all over.”

The driver immediately checked over themself and little sister. Their condition was bad. “My wrist was broke and hanging by its skin. Using my other arm I took a screwdriver and shattered the window. I went to the other side and cut my sisters seat belt and pulled her out.”

Luckily, the two found themselves safe. The sister only had minor cuts. The driver had a gash on their forehead and the one broken wrist. They were both able to climb the steep embankment toward the road planning to flag down help. Then things went from bad to worse.

“The truck caught fire, it burned for a minute before igniting the tank and exploding (not like a movie, fairly small just shooting shrapnel everywhere).” That shrapnel was what nearly did the driver in. “A piece of ceramic from the starter launched and lodged itself in my stomach. We were only a quarter mile from our house and we walked in and sat down.”

That’s all the driver remembers. They were later told that their dad raced home, but wouldn’t arrive for 45 minutes. But they were already unconscious. They said “I woke up in the hospital the next day,” before admitting, “I almost died.”

Comment
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incars

I think one reason this story made me pause was I learned to drive in snowy Vermont and had my share of near misses. Rolling a truck down a cliff at 16 would be a terrifying experience. Having it explode and embed shrapnel in your stomach while you are walking away would be all the more horrifying.

Obviously, a burning car is an actual time bomb. The sooner you can get away–and behind cover–the better. Perhaps this storyteller had no better option than to climb the bank, and was moving as fast as they could. But if you have another path, always get to cover.

Finally, there is only so much you can do to stay safe while driving in the winter. It sounds like seatbelts saved both the driver and his sister, so that’s a start. Four-wheel-drive would have helped a bit with the rear wheels sliding, but not as much as you might think. Many experienced drivers would be fine with a 2WD with excellent winter tires and–in the case of a truck–some weight in the bed. (A couple hundred pounds of sandbags should do the trick). And they would know that it’s easy to get moving too fast in limited traction. But there is only so much you can do to correct when you just haven’t experienced a slide before, so I’d say that purposefully getting the new truck sideways in a wide open parking lot after a fresh snowfall–and feeling it out–would have been a good lesson for this driver.

Regardless, I’m thrilled to read that the poster survived without any more serious injuries, and lived to tell their tale after all.