Greetings, -- I had coffee with our friend today, he is back at work and still recovering.
First of all, thanks them for the concern and well-wishes they have offered.
He is a young Silicon Valley Exec, smart and intelligent, reminds me of many people we all know in the bay area. He is a level headed guy.
I asked him what he wanted to share, and I think I have encompassed it in this note. =
The accident was pretty horrible by any measure. He does not truly remember what happened , he remembers the night before , and then a week later, --- --- --- --waking up ... in Stanford ICU.
Bottom Line; Somehow the car got out of control and hit the tree - and totaled his backdraft. When he crashed , good luck just so happens to have provided a fire chief was in traffic 30 seconds behind him and was basically the first on the scene, with first responders onsite in record time.
In this process , he was injured very seriously, with several significant compressive fractures in his face, and surrounding areas. They gave him a tracheotomy tube on the way to the hospital, during the process he swallowed 1 liter of his own blood and lost 2 more liters. ( he admits he is still a "quart-low",
but he is a young guy, so he should be OK --the doctors have told him this many times)
In seeing him today, -All I can say is Stanford Hospital did an absolute remarkable job. He does have a road to recovery that is paved with some dental and plastic surgeries ahead of him. He now has several structural titanium plates in his face today and they had to reconstruct him significantly , but again ,'
Stanford works wonders. He was banged up elsewhere, however - The burn on his leg from the side-pipes still requires a bandage on a daily basis. I am in general awe of what Stanford was able to do (from his description of the process ) - they worked on him for a solid 8 hours- on day 1.
In the MVV story , the kids referenced were officially investigated by MVPD, turns out they are actually gang types who apparently are in the habit of "flipping people off who have nice cars " - ( IMHO those kids need a new hobby) who thought he was going to swing around, and run them over. (no--- I dont get it ether )
So how fast was he going >? -- Nobody knows, The interesting part is that the traffic /skid computer they use for figuring out how fast you are going doesn't have a formula for cobras ,-- the car was too light with too much power for it to calculate properly.
There is one thing that happened during the accident that is cause for our cumulative significant review.
In the accident, the drivers side seat-belt "eye" bolt , holding the seat belt to the frame - broke -
I don't know who supplied (supplies) this on a backdraft. This made me think about all the different components on these cars , and there are some vendors out there who sell the lowest price part without regard to quality, or suitability of purpose. It made me stop and think about some of the stuff that is used and sold on the chosen cars of our hobby.
I asked him to get me in touch with his insurance carrier and if I could review one of the eye-bolts so we can see what they are , if they are of substandard quality or ? . I don't really know what backdraft supplies , and what the builder supplies in this case.
The takeaway is these are 2400lb motorcycles with 400-500-600 horsepower and can really hurt you badly if something happens.
I would treat our friends accident as a wake up call. Make sure you have *steel* seat bucket frames, not fibreglass, Make sure that the SEATS are actually bolted to the METAL frame, etc. make sure your seatbelts and hardware are DOT or SFI approved. - make sure you have good brakes, - dont under-transmission the car.
He had a roll-bar, -it never came into play. Bottom line ; its a 500HP, 2400LB motorcycle.
I am going to let this thread close and not comment any further, I will post the seat-belt-bolts article in the "All-Cobra" area and follow up from there.
Steve