I was driving my family home from short stay in the mountains.We were down in the flatlands and in a city zone, as opposed to a more rural straightaway. I had a seizure that caused me to become completely rigid and to floor the car. I have no memory of this. My husband realized that I must be having a seizure or a stroke and tried to remove my leg/foot from the gas pedal. He couldn't break it loose. We crashed into and broke down a light pole at 70MPH, careened across two or more lanes of traffic flew across some decorative rock garden and landed in a right angle of a chain link fence that we broke. So here is the question. Should he have turned off the car instead of pulling on my leg and bracing for a crash? I am the only injured party and my injury is serious. It is a broken tibia plateau. There are other, worse complications to deal with, but I do have a great prognosis. I am finally able to ask this question after four months of recovery. I have a long way to go. In many,many ways we were extraordinarily lucky. My husband and son were not hurt. I did not die. We hit no other people or cars. Still, it leaves me wondering. I'm mainly asking for the benefit of others. I won't be driving without anti-seizure meds!
Glad that you are recovering from your accident and that no one else was injured. It is not possible to turn a Prius off in this situation, the most he could have done would have been to put it in neutral to keep it from accelerating any more.
First of all, I'm happy to hear that the situation did not turn out much worse than it did. I hope you have a complete recovery and I wish you the best. Secondly, I can think of two things that might have been done in that situation. Press and hold the (POWER) button for three seconds. I believe this is a shut-off procedure even when the car is in motion. Someone will quickly tell me if I'm wrong on this point. Shift into Neutral by moving the shifter directly to the left and holding it there for a couple seconds. Now, I may be wrong about this, but it's possible that after either of those things were done, he might have been able to press on the brake pedal. At the very least, he might have been able to control the steering wheel unless you happened to have seized and gone rigid with that as well. However, we are analyzing this in complete hindsight and assuming he would be able to reach the brake pedal over you with his seatbelt fastened. In the situation, and given the brief period of time it took to play out, probably the best thing was to brace for impact and pray.
wow. I am so glad that all survived. It also should be noted that the little car protected your family very well. It is impossible to say what he could have done differently. What is done is done. He must have done ok as all survived. He deserves a lot of credit. It is very rare for seizures to come out of the blue like that. Had you no warning at all? If you were already on meds for that I am surprised the state allowed you to keep your DL. I hope you will not drive again until you are better or controlled. Automobile injury is never a good thing and I sincerely hope you recover quickly and completely. I would have tried to put the car into neutral or tried to push the power button but in reality dont really know of emergency procedures for this. We may all learn what to do for this from your accident and that may save lives. Thank you for coming out to talk about it.
One other option is to press the Park button. It won't actually go into park while at speed, but will beep and go into neutral instead. However, it's hard to think of these things in an emergency. Sorry to hear about your accident and I'm also glad it wasn't worse than it was.
if i had time to think i wouldve put it in neutral and put my foot over and pressed the brakes, but im sure i wouldve responded the way your husband did, and he did the best he could. im glad your ok
My mother died from a seizure while driving in 1978 - I was 19 at the time. You are very fortunate that you and your family survived. My family ignored a lot of my mother's warning signs (increasing seizures while sleeping, a previous non-fatal incident that may have been a seizure, etc.). Please do not ignore this very big warning sign that you experienced. Make sure that you are fully under control for many months before driving - I'm sure your state's medical board has specific requirements for this. Do follow those requirements to the letter - they are for the safety of you and those who are on the road with you. One other thing that dawns on me is that if you drive again you should have a car with a hand-activated emergency/parking brake in the center console instead of the foot pedal. I have many other things to write but it is late at night here on the east coast. My prayers go out to you and your family. I wish you a continued and full recovery.
I do not have a seizure disorder per se. There were absolutely NO warnings. I have a brain tumor, low grade, with good prognosis. I am now completely seizure free on anti-seizure meds. I did not know I had anything wrong, let alone a brain tumor. Thankfully, there is an extremely effective treatment for me, once I can walk again. The idea that I would drive without anti seizure meds now is so ridiculous, I will assume something was just unclear in my original message. By the way, I have met many people who ARE driving around without anti-seizure meds because they don't like the side effects of the drug. A smashed, mashed, crushed tibia plateau is no small side effect, so you won't catch me complaining about the meds. Talk about preaching to the choir!
I am sorry to hear of the accident. Most people simply hang on and do the best they can in that situation. It generally takes a trained/professional driver to actually think through the options in a moment of panic. If the foot could not be removed from the gas pedal the only things to do would be to put the car in neutral and pray the rev limiter kept the engine from blowing, utilize the emergency brake, and instead of removing your leg from the gas pedal, your husband should have attempted to jam his foot on the brake pedal. However almost nobody thinks of these things when in your situation and neither of you did anything wrong. You both did the best you could possibly do. Keep a good recovery going. I actually have a "kill switch" on my dashboard (however not in a Prius).
Glad to hear you are okay. The only thing you can do now is prepare yourself in the event of it occuring again. Maybe you could try a few things to see if they work, but do it in a place where there are no other cars. It's a good thing to know as we all get older, who the heck knows what might happen while we are driving. Buck
Very frightening situation I am sure. I am glad you are recovering from the accident. It is my sincere hope that you seek the medical treatment required to hopefully prevent seizures in the fiture; regardless, I hope you do not get behind the wheel of a car again until you have been seizure free for at leasta few years. On a side note, I can't imagine the liability you would suffer if you now drove, seized and killed/injured someone!
Yes, trying to think in such a circumstance is difficult, and three seconds feels like an eternity. I'd have to go with trying to shift to Neutral: - shutting OFF the car removes the power steering - trying to reach the brake pedal leaves that person unprotected in the case of a crash A hand operated parking brake on the center console could be a lifesaver. Maybe Toyota should try real hard to find a way to put it there, as in so many other modern cars.
Try to step on the accelerator while on Neutral... the engine won't blow... it just won't do nothing.
Yes, either "P" or "Neutral" would stop the car from accelerating. There would be no risk of further mechanical damage to the car. So this would limit the speed of the collision. Even 10 MPH makes a big difference in a collision. So for future reference, press either button and hold on! Unfortunatly, in these kinds of events it's hard to think of these "different" reactions. Our first automatic response is to go for the brake pedal. I experienced an incident many years ago of a stuck down accelerator pedal (in a "normal" car). The correct action would have been to turn off the key. It took me about 5 seconds to figure that out. Lucky in my case nothing bad happened. Glad you survived.
Unfortunately, my first suggestion would be to have your husband not let you drive, ever, whether he's in the car or not.
Your husband already did a good job for handling this (No one died in-car or outside). As no one ever prepared for such situation, and no one can ever thought of these much details on how to shut down the car in such 'split-second' urgency. Like others suggested, pressing the PARK button is feasible (or easier) in such emergency. It's extremely hard (indeed MORE risky) for the passenger to intervene to try pressing your Brake padel because of the seat belt he/she already fastened. So the best action is probably just press the "P" to cut its acceleration and focus on the steering to find something 'safer' (non-human object) to crash into/slow down the car.... Hope you get well sooner.
Good luck with the leg. Find a good surgeon (one that will start PT ASAP - within a week of surgery if possible) and it should come out like this.
Wow - first off, I'm glad that you both survived the accident. Wow. FYI, I've had the same injury as you - a fractured tibial plateau on the medial (inside) of my tibia. I'm guessing that your fracture is much worse than mine. Mine did not require surgery, and I was walking again in 6 weeks. I was back to normal in about another 8 weeks. I feel lucky that I was able to recover fully Good luck on your recovery/physical therapy. I don't think there was much that could have been done in your situation. Recover as best you can, and be thankful (I'm sure your are) that you both survived. ... Brad
If you had read the entire thread, you would have seen this from the OP: "I do not have a seizure disorder per se. There were absolutely NO warnings. I have a brain tumor, low grade, with good prognosis. I am now completely seizure free on anti-seizure meds. I did not know I had anything wrong, let alone a brain tumor. Thankfully, there is an extremely effective treatment for me, once I can walk again. The idea that I would drive without anti seizure meds now is so ridiculous, I will assume something was just unclear in my original message. By the way, I have met many people who ARE driving around without anti-seizure meds because they don't like the side effects of the drug. A smashed, mashed, crushed tibia plateau is no small side effect, so you won't catch me complaining about the meds. Talk about preaching to the choir!" ... Brad
No. Here are some things to consider. 1) Fastening and wearing the seatbelts was the most important thing compared to everything else. If this was the case, then 99% of the right stuff was done before the event. 2) Preparing for impact is critical for not having the airbags injure the passengers and drivers. Much worse things could have happened if the airbags deployed with anyone grossly out of position. The story would have a worse outcome if he were positioned in front of you at impact. 3) It is very unlikely that he could have held the power button down for three seconds when going off the highway. It is a battle just to hold on to the steering wheel when off the pavement (This I know firsthand)...and there is nothing to grip around the button. It is possible that some different action could have resulted in a better outcome, but nobody is in a position to know that. Focus on the stuff that you did right-safe car, driving safely before the incident, seat belts on (hopefully) while driving. This is as good as anyone can reasonably do.
