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A Brooklyn college student was pinned under a car that had crashed into his motorcycle. Rescue workers tried to free him with a hydraulic jack. When the car was 4 feet in the air, it dropped on the student.
“A firefighter cursed at another guy and yelled, `What are you doing?’ ” writes the New York Post. After the car fell on the student, he didn’t make a sound. The student died in Brookdale Hospital.
A police source told the Post that the student died of injuries from the crash.
32 Comments on “Rescue Workers Drop Car On Motorcyclist. Motorcyclist Dies...”
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This is just sad. Somebody else recently used this, but Alannis Morisette eat your heart out.
It’s like getting crushed… by the car that you were already getting crushed by. How ironic.
I say this as someone who rides: It’s dangerous, and when it’s your time, it’s your time. It’s shit luck to die that way, but the only crash you’re sure to survive is the one you don’t get in to.
That’s profound.
I say this as someone who showers: It’s dangerous, and when it’s your time, it’s your time. It’s shit luck to die that way, but the only shower slip ‘n’ fall you’re sure to survive is the one you don’t get into.
So what you are saying is that shower slip and falls are substantially more likely to result in death than any other type of slip and fall accident? Something like 35x more likely? Or are you comparing shower-related deaths to all other types of bathing related deaths?
Choices that the biker made contributed to him being trapped under a car in the first place. What’s the alternative to letting the rescuers get involved? Waiting for the guy to push it off himself? Are you stating that if you were to fall down in the shower and were unable to extricate yourself that anyone finding your immobilized body should just leave you there on the off chance that a rescue attempt goes wrong?
Riding a motorcycle in NYC is not exactly a low-risk activity. It’s somewhere up there with vanity climbing of Himalayan mountains by the wealthy and cave diving.
It looks like wheel chocks were not used here. The article says they claimed they were in place, but it sure doesn’t look like it. Did they chock the rear wheels???
Lie, lie, lie. Cover-up. That the first response of fire/police departments when they screw up like this.
They were probably not aware that there was video floating around showing that at least 3/4 points weren’t chocked.
Absolutely sickening. I’ve had a car fall on me, and I’ve been in a motorcycle wreck, but I’ve never been in a motorcycle wreck and had a car fall on me at the same time. Unbelievable.
There is no human situation so miserable that it cannot be made worse by the presence of a policeman.
“Died of injuries from the crash” to avoid a lawsuit against the city.
there looked to be more than enough able bodied people milling about to just flip that Taurus over, never mind what the official rescue manual says……..4 or 5 rioting hooligans manage to do it on a regular basis …..just watch the 10 o’clock news.
Correct! Only 20% of a Taurus’ weight rests on its back half. Just needed 6-7 guys plus the tow truck was on scene before any of the rescuers are visible. Probably waved off… “Let the professionals handle this…”
I’m pretty sure no Taurus (or any other modern car) has an 80/20 weight distribution.
Yes thank you for that but completely ignore the point while you’re at it. Closest I can find is a ’96 SHO w/ 64/36.
What was the point of this story other than to make me slightly sad this morning?
Feels like this site is going towards more lurid stories to get the page views up. It does seem to be working, too.
Lurid would have been showing photos of the aftermath.
Two things are very wrong about this video:
1) The New Jersey Ford dealership ad is sickeningly ironic.
2) What the fuck is up with using the jaws of life in that manner? No footing for something to lift with? I pretty much never say this, but I sure hope they get sued. This was so poorly thought out. And to write in the police report that he died from the initial accident is tactless.
As a firefighter for over 12 years, when I first read your comment I was very agitated on what you wrote regarding the rescue attempt. But after watching that very small video repeatedly I calmed down and thought about it. First, anyone can Monday morning quarterback when watching a video from a PC screen but unless you are on scene assessing the situation you will never know all the facts or factors relating to the rescue. It looks to me that it was PD who initiated the rescue with the hydraulic spreaders. While it can be used it is not optimal. A standard floor jack with cribbing or air bags would have been a better choice. When on scene seconds count and decisions need to be made. That decision turned out to be the wrong one especially without cribbing being used to support the vehicle. Without knowing what resources were on scene I cant answer as to the choice they made. Regardless first responders need to look at this and use it as a tool to improve methods. Remember, there is no instruction manual on rescuing human lives from danger. Its sad that this person lost his life. I cannot blame the person who tried to save him. He tried to save that kid and unfortunately things went wrong. Odds are a crushing injury such as that may have been fatal regardless of the rescue attempt.
I have to say that the rescuers may not be entirely blameless for this. In fact, someone may have to lose their job if something truly was not done properly. AT the very least, a suspension or mandatory re-training, reassignment, etc.
I work in a busy trauma hospital and all of us are acutely aware that any split-second decision we make can (and WILL) be second-guessed in a matter of days if something goes horribly wrong. Does that make me hesitate? No. Does it make me stay up all night sometimes studying my butt off? You bet.
If something was done inappropriately, then it’s got to be addressed, and my guess is – it will be. But let’s hope it’s constructive and not merely another way to make yet more lawyers rich.
What angers me the most though is the written report, which tries to shift blame. While yes, the woman should be held fully accountable for the accident, I don’t think she can be held 100% responsible for his death. If witness reports aren’t over exaggerated, it was the falling car that silenced him.
But how they lifted the car broke many rules in regards to how to safely jack up a car.
Also, the people standing and doing nothing to help him before rescuers, taking up close pics with their phone.. that makes me angry too.
“Onlookers blamed the FDNY for the motorcyclists’ death.”
What about the idiot that turned left in front of him and drove over him? She’s blameless?
What crush did he die from? Did he died from crushing on the bike or from a car crushing him when rescue attempt failed?
5 strong guys lift as far as they can……1 guy jams spare tires, street furniture, anything solid, as a safety net……2 people pull victim out by nearest unbroken limb…..30 seconds max and he’s free!(but not necessarily alive, of course). This is a scenario where quick and decisive resourcefulness trumps experts doing things “by the book”.
The only problem with that scenario is if the victim had a severe spinal or neck injury. Moving him “quickly” can be just as fatal or even worse, result in a permanent neurological injury.
Believe it or not, but sometimes there is no right answer!
Watched the video. Looked like a darwin award video. Or a “hold my beer. watch this” video.
Kid died from another’s stupidity.
I don’t think I have an useful opinion here. But I will use the words of Martin Lawrence: “Damn, damn, DAMN!!!” No matter who is at fault for his death, it truly was a shame. A damn shame.
I hate this kind of “journalism”. It is pure sensationalism. What is the point of this post exactly? What does it have to do with “The Truth About Cars”?
Horrible article followed by some horrible comments.
Unless you are one of the actual eye witnesses or, especially, the emergency crew attending then you can’t be sure what was done or why it was done. You absolutely cannot decide whether the actions were correct or not.
Good example of the worst of the internet. Everyone is an expert regardless of their actual qualifications or knowledge of a situation. Getting sick and tired of ignorant people spouting their garbage.
Yeah, yeah…I get it. I don’t HAVE to read it, blah, blah.
You don’t have to be there to understand the results.
Mistakes were made an a man died. He might have died from injuries from the initial wreck, but we don’t know that because the responders dropped the vehicle they were trying to rescue him from back onto him. (And then silence.) They took action and the action that they took most probably directly contributed to his death. Whether or not the mistakes that they made were understandable given the circumstances or negligent remains to be seen. Even if you WERE one of the people there, you probably don’t fully understand what exactly happened, either.
The reason why the lie/cover-up instinct of first responders pisses me off is that I don’t consider first responders (EMS/FD/PD) in the US to be performing a particularly stressful or particularly dangerous jobs. American EMS, American firefighters and American cops (these are the worst) complaining about how tough their jobs are and how LIVES depend on their decisions piss me off. I have worked in ERs, hospitals, clinics, and convenient wide spots all over the world. American first response have no idea how tough it can get. First response in the US is a cakewalk and not only that, there’s a pretty good chance that you might actually succeed. First response in a third world country (almost inevitably a bus/truck collision) is deciding right there on the street which batch of patients you can’t even begin to treat, which ones might survive transport IF you can get transport, and the ones you tell to try to get to casualty on their own. Meanwhile, there’s three cops trying to perform crowd control on an increasingly heavily armed and angry mob, half of whom are trying to steal the diesel fuel that’s spilling onto the street with little plastic water bottles. American first responders will only see maybe a handful of times at most in their entire stateside careers the kind of chaos that emergency responders in the developing world on a weekly basis.
Every single time that I’ve seen instances of mistakes made by first responders, they immediately try to insulate themselves from any and all criticism. First comes the “you weren’t there” argument. Then comes the “job is stressful, and full of split second life or death decisions.”
This is complete dog shit. The culture of American first response is to never admit mistakes, particularly during and immediately following. This, to me, is a good indication of how undeveloped the critical decision making process is for these guys.
Truly good emergency responders (medical, military, etc) readily and immediately admit their mistakes. If you actually know what you’re doing and have real confidence in your abilities, experience and capabilities, you’re the first guy to say, “We just did XYZ here and it was a mistake. Don’t do this.”
Instead, what do we have here? PD/FD refusing to take responsibility. PD/FD shifting responsibility for the death to the woman who caused the accident. PD/FD lying about their actions. First priority: protect our own. Lower priorities: truth and actually serving the public. Dare to criticize? Cops (and to a lesser degree, EMS and FD) coming out of the woodwork with the typical retorts of insecure arrogance: “You weren’t there, you don’t know what you’re talking about. You don’t know how STRESSFUL this job is.”
Actually, yeah, I do. That’s why I’m so critical. Police are the worst and are in a league of their own. I don’t really hold anything against FD/EMS, except when they’re guilty by association. Mostly, I just can’t deal with the emo level whining when they receive any criticism.
Implying the rescue workers killed him is akin to saying a man was shot 14 times, but was OK (because he was moaning) until rescue workers gave him oxygen which must have killed him because then he stopped breathing. The entire affair is unfortunate, but the chance of him surviving being run over and stuck under a car was really, really low to begin with.
http://www.ems1.com/fire-ems/articles/1119227
Watch the full 15 minutes. What pisses me off is that there is not one bystander on scene that does any size up, prelim care, or give a crap about the poor s.o.b. under the car.
Remember YOU HAVE TO STEP UP TO FUCK UP!!!!