From WSB contributing photographer Christopher Boffoli, three photos of tonight’s amazing car mishap on 47th south of Wildwood, between the ferry dock and the Fauntleroy business district:
The woman driving the car was taken to the hospital. ADDED 8:15 PM: Here’s WSB video of a tow crew pulling the car off the cable:.
No definitive word yet on exactly what happened here, except for neighbors’ speculation that the driver had trouble negotiating a nearby curve.
The police and firefighters were talking about the possibility of alcohol. I only caught a glimpse of the driver through the back of the ambulance but it seemed to be an older woman so it could have been a stroke or some other medical issue.
If I believed in such things I’d have to say that this was some kind of Christmas miracle. If she had hit that pole this might have been a much sadder story. How she managed to balance that car on that wire I’ll never know.
This happened too early to interfere with sleep. It did almost interfere with the tuna casserole, though, but one of us managed to finish assembling that as the other headed down the hill for video (and while Christopher was there taking those incredible still pix).
So far, sponsorships have the mortgage covered. It’s the rest of the expenses we’re working on next :)
On the news last night they said the driver was an 80 year old woman. Maybe time for the family to take away granny’s driver’s license. On a serious note, the poor woman must have been terrified just hanging there.
Not even Evil Knevil would have attempted to jump a vehicle off a cable.
Have any of you seen the movie Cars? It looked like a scene out of that.
Mmmmmmm…….tuuuunaaa casserollllle…..
*Homer Simpson Drool* Aaaaaggggghhhhhh….
Mags, I saw the clip, on Ch. 5 News (home of Parka Boy/Danger Jim) of the tow truck pulling the car off the guy wire and was thinking the name thing about how scared she must before they tried to rescue her.
All of that just adds to her trauma, :(
Mike
How weird, one of my paragraphs didn’t appear.
……before they tried to rescue her.
The Fire Dept would have had to check out* the situation, and determine if the car needed to be stabilized before rescuing her.
All of that just adds……..
*In my original post, I used a different word, that had I dropped one of the two letter “s” off the end of it, it would have spelled the plural form of another word for a person’s rear end. Maybe the site’s dirty word filter snaggged it.
Looks like one of the driving Wallenda’s…. She topped the goof that drove the 4×4 over the rockery a couple of weeks ago.
Miws, that was our video on KING … after it had been up here on our site for a couple hours (WSB comes first!) we sold it to them for a nominal fee (recalling from our former TV days that stations will pay freelancers for good video from time to time); their own crew didn’t get there till the car was already off the wire and about to be towed. You can see the “pulling car off wire” video in its entirety right here by clicking the video window in this post.
A great Christopher picture and tuna casserole all in the same comments thread. Take THAT, CNN!
WSB,,,yet another way to make money to pay that cable bill :) Way to go ,getting there first….I LOVE tuna casserole…can we have it at the “meet and greet” yet to come? ;-)
Way to go WSB. Pays to carry a small vid camera huh?
Wife keeps asking me why I want to bring it everywhere.
She must have been the person who gave driving lessons to the fellah in the big pickup a few weeks ago. Either way, they’re keeping their business local. (towing)
Todd, we bought our video camera expressly for the purpose of covering news for WSB … from part of the proceeds of our “pledge day” in August. Last one we had before that was a decade-old clunker, so old it has no known way to plug into anything resembling a computer!
Yeah, WTG WSB!
Quality video like that, going over the public airwaves via TV, just re-enforces the relatively young WSB as a viable news gathering/sharing entity. Of course, I’d like to see proper credit given, and didn’t so, unless they rolled it in the newscasts closing credits.
And, although I was not able to contribute during the original Aug Drive, I’m glad you were able to get the new cam, and retire the classic, kerosene operated one! ;)
miws..LOLOL..My wife and I have been talking about ‘Danger Jim’ since I moved here in ’95. Ya don’t see him doing the crazy stuff anymore tho..he must have some seniority now :)
No one has mentioned the impressive strength of that cable and utility pole! I think our municipal workers deserve a little pat on the back for the fact that this incident didn’t put a bunch of us in the dark for a day or two.
I hope the driver is doing well.
Miws, it’s TV SOP that if you pay for the video, you don’t have to credit the source unless said source requires it. The leverage for that generally only comes if you have something they really want. (Again, I know this because as a former TV news manager I was on the other side of it — I got to make the call many a time on whether we wanted to buy video X from freelancer X – and unless it was something smashingly exclusively incredible, the only credit the shooter got was the check in the mail.) This was just a good pic worth a few secs on TV in addition to its WSB run so we offered it at a relatively low price for the heck of it.
Ron – we agree with you on that – also kudos to the fire crews who somehow got the driver out safely even before we made it down the hill. Meant to go back today and see how things looked in daylight but time ran out.
grr, I picked up the “Danger Jim” handle from someone here on the WSB. I like it, plus I still like the long time nic of “Parka Boy” that I picked up a long time ago from another group I’m a regular on.
I’ve noticed him doing more “inside” stuff too. I wonder if he had his parka hermetically sealed and either mounted on a wall in his home, or perhaps donated to MOHAI, or the Smithsonian? :p
Mike
WSB,
Thanks for the clarification.
Altough, in my opinion, your image is smashingly exclusively incredible! ;)
Mike
I’m pretty sure the correct attribution for “Danger Jim” and “Parka Boy” belongs to KING’s old “Almost Live” show, though I can’t remember who played “Parka Boy.”
Found it – from “The John Report with Bob,” John Keister (and Bob Nelson, always my favorite Almost Live alumnus)’s sort of short-lived post-AL show on KIRO.
Here’s the clip, with Basil Harris as Parka Boy.
http://dabble.com/node/16733312
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