Crazy Canuck

Wow.

RIP.

ProCoach

Agreed. Far more since the circuit changes to make it "safer for spectators." Only BIG accidents I've ever had were there, roughly where this fellow was...

I tell people all the time, "You have 8-12 foot tall concrete walls, usually less than 50' off the track surface, 85% of the way around the circuit... Drive safe and with margin."

Fine for pros, less so for people doing it for fun.

sbelles

I find it incredible that he had to go looking for EMTs / ambulance after a crash.

Sterling Doc

R.I.P.

If there is one clear lesson at this point, it is to get checked out, by a trauma center, after a high impact crash- even if things "seem OK" in the beginning.

Coochas

This is a very sobering thread. It's easy to think that this could never happen to you. But it certainly can. RIP.

93 FireHawk 968

What a sad story. Think of how many people we know who've had a hard hit and walk away not thinking the "What If"? at impact. Is that slight headache after impact more than we believe it is? You just never know. I'm still shocked to see drivers in high hp cars with minimal safety equipment other than provided by the car mfg. No Hans, cheap helmet and no 5 point belts. I'm not saying this is the case with this incident, just an observation about how safety is taken for granted.

ProCoach

Most tracks have a standing policy that if the car cannot be driven back into the paddock, then the driver MUST go to medical IN the ambulance. That may have happened here, I don't know. I do know that I have seen drivers held in medical and even transported to local hospitals if there was ANY doubt about closed head wounds or even a momentary loss of consciousness. My wife got knocked out at Lime Rock (sitting still in the car inside the Left Hander, hit by someone who lost control by themselves exiting Big Bend) and it was the scariest day of my life...

Crazy Canuck

One of the first thing that popped into my mind was Liam Neeson's wife, Natasha Richardson, dying after hitting her head in fall at Mont Tremblant Quebec and refusing medical attention.

J richard

Always sad to hear of things like this, and they are more common than we would care to admit. Best to the family and friends.

The human body is pretty resilient but the head is delicate. A friends 16 year old daughter went to the waterpark and hit her head on the side if the slide, was fine at first but complained of a headache a little later, they took her off life support the next day...it doesn't take a 150mph crash to suddenly end a life.

MattUF

Awful to hear, RIP.

MSR Racer

I was there that day, and I actually spoke to him after he wrecked it. He was on the same lap but just a head of me. If I am not mistaken, he wrecked it one of the early morning 'warm up' laps. It was little cold with mist on the track and tires were cold. Like someone said, he appears to have spun on the trackout out of turn 5 and spun. The car was on the left side of the track but the impact was the drivers side. He of course had no cage and doidnt have a HANS either. The car was pretty much done.

He was wobbling around and the Chin intsructor wanted him to go the EMS/ER but he said he was OK. Now, I am in the medical field but it is very hard push someone to go to the hospital when you are not officially on duty.

As things turned out, he had been on a blood thinner for a medical condition.. perhaps he should not have been on the track at all. He succumbed to sequalae of closed head injury..i.e. intra-cerebral hemorrhage from what i can gather. it is very sad and very sobering for all of us. He was at the track with with his teenage son!! truly, heart-breaking.

I was at the Daytona DE two weeks aga during the race weekend, and we were clearly told that if you wreck you car you go to the hospital..it is not an option!! This should be the minimum standard at any DE...no ifs and buts. You wreck...you go to the ER.

Safe driving guys....may the force be with you and me!

mrbill_fl

*(from what I've read so far),
it sounded like, he thought he was OK, but later started to feel bad.... well after the next session started, so EMT was back on station.


fwiw, 3rd party summary of accident:

http://forum.miata.net/vb/showpost.p...4&postcount=61


Was this an open passing HPDE or, an actual race?
read some comments about 'racing' the driver of the vette.


RIP

edit: ^ better summary from surathdp (thanks)

fhp911

My first thought (other than grief) was about Natasha Richardson (same as Crazy Canuck above) and then about Mark Donahue, who walked and talked for quite a while after his accident.

The moral must be to get evaluated immediately in the ambulance after any accident. (I've been in 2 such at WGI as a passenger/instructor and in each case we were picked up at the site by the ambulance and had our vitals taken.)

Carrera51

Sad to hear this. RIP

mglobe

When I had my big wreck at TWS, I was ushered into the ambulance right away and monitored for some time. I felt fine, but my friends took my truck keys away from me and drove me home. The next day, Bob Jones, who was the steward for the race called me from his home in Salt Lake to make sure I was ok. Times like that tell you what kind of people you are hanging with.