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"Maybe Angela Chao had special bullet proof glass fitted or something?"
Elon Musk introduces the Tesla X Escape Challenge used by Angela Chao in her stock pond in the upper portion of the aerial photo
Chao had invited seven girlfriends from her days at Harvard Business School to spend the Chinese New Years holiday weekend of Feb. 9 at the ranch. It was a gorgeous retreat, with a 10-bedroom guesthouse known as “the inn.” Around 11:30 p.m., Chao left the inn to head back to the main house. The night was chilly and very dark, with no moon, so rather than walk, Chao got in her Tesla
Model X SUV for the four-minute trip back to the house.
Within minutes of saying her goodbyes, she called one of her friends in a panic. While making a three-point turn, she had put the car in reverse instead of drive, she said. It is a mistake she had made before with the Tesla gearshift. The car had zipped backward, tipping over an embankment and into a pond. It was sinking fast. Could they help her? - wsj.com
Over the next several hours, her friends, then the ranch manager and his wife, and then paramedics, and firefighters and sheriff’s deputies rushed around and tried to break the windows, find an escape hatch or any way to get Chao out of the car. Somehow an executive who made her living on the sea was drowning in a stock pond within sight of her home.
A driver has about one minute to get out of a car sinking into water. When vehicles were made with more manual mechanics, a driver could crank down the window to get out. In cars, like the Tesla Model X vehicle, the driver may have just seconds to push the button to roll the window down before the water level rises too high. After that, the only mode of exit would be by breaking it, say auto safety experts.
That is terribly difficult underwater and can be even more so when trying to bash through tempered glass or sturdier laminated glass, which most car companies use today. Laminated glass, in particular, is lauded for its safety qualities, such as preventing a driver from being ejected during a crash; however it is nearly impossible to break underwater, according to testing done by the American Automobile Association.
Many drivers mistakenly think that they should try to open their door if their car becomes immersed in water, said Gordon Giesbrecht, a senior scholar at University of Manitoba who studies vehicle-submersion deaths. Due to the pressure of the water, it would be nearly impossible to open a submerged car door.
More emergency workers arrived on the scene as the deputies on top of the car requested more tools to break the window. An emergency services worker and firefighter entered the water with rescue tools. An emergency services worker and firefighter entered the water with rescue tools.
A tow truck came but didn’t have a cable long enough to reach the vehicle. Some on the scene didn’t expect the vehicle to be so far out in the pond, but responders eventually retrieved a longer cable.
The local EMS station has one ambulance to cover 7,000 people spread out over 200 square miles. Properties more than two miles away from the station are generally given the weakest insurance safety rating of 10 based on how quickly help can arrive. The ranch is twelve miles from the station. New York, Austin and other major cities have a rating of one, by contrast. |
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