Passengers walk around shortly after their van plummeted
down this embankment. This view is looking straight down from Red Mountain Pass.
Posted on 02/15/2005 8:28:35 AM PST by rface
DENVER -- Seat belts are being credited with saving six people after a van slid off a mountain pass and dropped 400 feet down a sheer cliff Saturday afternoon, the Colorado State Patrol said.
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Five of the victims were able to get out of the wrecked vehicle and climb 400 feet back up the cliff with help from rescuers with Ouray Search and Rescue. One person who was lifted up in a rescue stretcher was walking around the hospital a few hours later in good condition, the CSP said.
By 6:30 p.m., all six victims were released from the hospital and on the road again -- all of them with just bumps and bruises.
The group was traveling from Durango, Colo., to Montrose , Colo., on Highway 550 Red Mountain Pass, about 6.6 miles south of Ouray, when the accident occurred at about 4 p.m.
The victims were identified as two families from Montrose returning from a basketball game. Terry Holman was sitting in the front passenger seat and said that he thought they would all die when the van plunged down the hill. After the van came to a rest, he didn't realize how far it had fallen.
"Looking up, it didn't look near as far as it did when we looked down," said Holman. "The estimates I've heard, they're saying anywhere from 400 to 500 feet."
"I heard him say, 'I'm sorry, we're going over.' Because we were only going about 10 mph at the time and going really slowly. We just lost control, lost traction," said survivor Terry Sullivan.
The CSP said the victims are extremely lucky and attributed their miraculous survival to all six wearing seatbelts.
"After the first roll, and you're still alive, and you still feel it, I said, 'You know, maybe we're OK.' But then you roll again and again. We never stopped, so I kept thinking we've survived every roll it seemed like," said Joe Sullivan.
My goodness!
Someone was looking out for these people.
OK, now a SUV saves lives, but no mention of that in the headline. Then later, it's referred to as a "van". Bias!
Also, this is one of the rare "good" SUVs; They slip by QC from time to time.
400 ft drop, falling at 32 ft/sec/sec, or 12.5 second fall.
I can't imagine.
Coming soon in an Onstar commercial.
It wasn't so much a "400 foot plunge" as a 400 foot Kamikaze-downhill. Fun on a mountain bike, but not in a minivan!
an extra ordinary situation made possible by lots and lots of soft; relitivly speaking, snow. I am sure the wet snowy roads caused the accident, but the snow also allowed the van to roll and slide down the hill while acting as a brake and a cushon. Is that had happened on a summers day the van would be in pieces due to friction adn snaging on rocks, stumps adn anything else there.
They can consider themselves lucky that the snow was there.
I went across 550 in a snow storm once when it was already packed. Quite a thrill.
I can't even imagine driving on those roads in the winter..
I made my first visit to Colorado 18 months ago,in early September,and a family member was doing the driving.I kept my eyes closed most of the time and the roads were bone dry.
Maybe someone should alert CDOT that guardrails have been invented?
THAT'S the information I was looking for! Amazing...
I've driven it too, and you're right, it's scary even in the summer. There are places on that road where there is zero room for error. If you're on the outside lane and you slide a foot, you go over the edge. When I first heard this story I wondered how a guy going 10 miles an hour could plunge down the mountain, then I heard it was Red Mountain Pass. Yup. I'm so glad they're OK. They're very lucky.
I hope they had a change of underwear...
Check your math. Dividing 400 by 32 gives the 12.5 seconds, but I don't think that's the correct answer.
The 32 ft./sec/sec has that "second second" because of the acceleration factor. So, if I recall my physics correctly, you fall 32 ft in the first second, 64 in the 2nd second, 96 in the 3rd second, etc..
So, the fall probably took about 4.5 seconds.
Caveat: eventually, air resistance stops the acceleration process, so people who free-fall out of an airplane or a very high building eventually reach terminal velocity. I think it is around 130 mph or so.
P,
Hey yeah, terminal velocity.
But it looks like neither of us needed to bother with the arithmetic, as it seems it wasn't a sheer drop.
But even if it were, and the numbers come up to 4-5 seconds, that's a long time to free fall.
However we cut the numbers, guess about the slope of the cliff or the depth of the snow, all I know is I'd be screaming like Dean off the side of that road!
YEEAAAAARRGH!
The data lacks the friction coefficient for rock and snow.
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