Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Go behind the wheel, under the hood and beyond with
car Stuff from how Stuffworks dot Com and Welcome to
Car Stuff. I'm Scott Benjamin had On, Ben bolland Ben.
Today's topic is one that a lot of people are
going to do immediately think, well, this will never happen
to me. However, I want you to stay tuned because
(00:24):
there's some pretty startling numbers that are involved in this one. Right, Yeah,
that's true, ladies and gentlemen. Today we are talking about
how to escape a sinking car. Sounds like something other
movies that happens, That's right. It happens more than you think.
And that's why I'm telling everybody to listen to this one,
because you know, whether or not you think it's going
to happen to you or not, it's good just to
(00:45):
kind of have this information on your on your mind
and the in the catalog of information that you have
to know how to get out of a car if
it ends up in the water. And it's really really important.
Here's how here's how common this is, Ben, and I
didn't I didn't know this. It's some studies say that
over ten thousand water immersion accidents happen each year. Now,
that's not completely sinking or anything like that. That's a
(01:07):
car that ends up in a pond, you know, on
a golf course or something like that or whatever. Um.
But but some of them do end up to the
point where you know, the water is above the top
of the vehicle. The passengers are are faced or tasked
with escaping that vehicle in some way. And it's not
as easy as you may think. However, it's possible, and
it all comes down to about five or six very
(01:30):
clear steps. Right. We're gonna walk through those steps, and
we're also going to along the way have some recommendations
about stuff. This is one of the things that you
see in films often our TV shows, you know, but
it's not, as we'll find accurate. Yeah, they're portrayed in
(01:50):
a very Hollywood like way, as we'll find out, because
there's a few critical things here that you really need
to understand that differ greatly from what you will see
on on on the big screen, I guess. And and
you know, we mentioned that it's pretty common, right, so
some people survive, other people unfortunately don't. But um, and
I want to tell you that, you know, towards the
(02:11):
end of this I want to mention a few cases
that are of the extreme. I guess, you know, people
that have been gone missing for a long long time.
And I think we've talked about some of these in
the Urban Legend show that we've done, you know, with
the sunken missing cars, the teenagers that go out and
don't come home, that kind of thing. It really does happen.
So we'll talk about some of those later. But I
want to tell you that the truth is and and
this is honest truth. Ben Bridges sometimes do break. Sometimes
(02:35):
they're you know, in uh, you know, such poor repair
that they collapse or something like that. It's unusual, but
it does happen. The Federal Highway Administration has about twelve
percent of the bridges in the United States deemed structurally deficient.
Boy okay, Now, not all of them go over water.
I understand that, right, that's the case, right, But the guardrails,
(02:56):
you know, that's the problem there. Right. Also, you knows,
can just simply skit off the road. That's another possibility
that that happens, exactly right. They lose traction, swerve to
avoid something like that. Oh maybe a pelican like that,
like the Bugatti driver who is now facing what twenty
years in prison or something like that for for UM
insurance fraud. I think it was also you could, um,
(03:20):
you could go over or around a guardrail, you know,
or maybe there's not a guardrail in a a position that
it should be in, because that happens to um. You
know that, uh, you know, as you approach a bridge
that goes over a body of water. UM, you know,
not always it's not always the case. It should be,
but it's not always the case that there's a guardrail
in a position that would prevent you from going to
the left or right of that bridge and going into
(03:41):
the water. And that's a that's a real hazard. You
may have to swerve off of the road into a
body of water because of an accident or an out
of control oncoming vehicle. I mean that's something that a
lot of people don't think about. But you know, if
you have been in an accident listeners or you know
someone who has been in a serious car accident, then
(04:02):
you know that in some cases, UH, drivers have no
choice but to go for the ditch because it's the
safest possible outcome. It happens, and you know, our point is,
I guess you know there's many more than this, right,
There's there's other accidents that happened, of course, lots of circumstances.
But um, it is possible to end up in the
water with your car still. So you know, just keep
in the back of your mind that you know that
it's a possibility. And we're gonna let's cut if you're
(04:25):
okay with it, let's walk through some dues and don't
how's that sound sounds great? All right? So, uh, first,
the one that you'll always hear, the one that a
lot of people will never be able to do. Stay calm.
With that being said, remember in you know, in Hollywood,
the you usually see a sinking car taking several suspense
(04:46):
filled moments, you know. Uh, but in real life you
will have an average of thirty to a hundred twenty seconds,
So you got about anywhere from thirty seconds to two
minutes at best. Uh. Well, the car is quote unquote floating,
but it's really slowly sinking even at that point. I
don't know if it's a sedan or something that's gonna
(05:08):
sink in the direction of the engine. All right, right,
and you know you're thinking that uh right away, your
your instinct I guess would be to open the door,
try to get out, right. The problem with this is
and a lot of people don't understand this. Now. I
know we've talked before about this that you know, the
water pressure thing is a big deal, right, and you
would think that that would be the case when it's
you know, nearing the window area of your door, right
(05:30):
that you know it wouldn't be a problem until it's
mostly covering the door. The truth is pretty much, the
second you hit the water, your doors are below the
water level already, and even a few inches of water
is gonna be it's gonna make it extremely difficult to
open that door. And you don't want to open the
door because when you open the door, what you're doing
is popping that air pressure that's keeping your vehicle from
(05:54):
sinking super quickly. Yeah, so this is just a little
bit counterintuitive, and you want to jump out of the car.
Understand that, right, Your first the first reaction, the first
thing you should do, besides staying calm, which is difficult
to do. I understand, roll down the windows. Now, I
know we've heard that before from you know, a lot
of places, and you roll down the windows and some
people say, well, I have electric windows, they're not gonna
(06:14):
work as soon as they hit the water. But there's
there's a little bit of a myth there, right, Yeah, yeah,
there there is a myth there. Uh you want to
go ahead and bust it? Yeah, why not? I mean,
I'll tell you that electric windows should work for about
three minutes once the car is in the water. Now
that blew me away. I had no idea because I
thought I was in the camp of you know, the
windows don't work immediately, like, if you don't have the
(06:37):
old crank style windows, you're pretty much out of luck
for this method of escape, right, but not completely that
that is not the case. And they've they've actually done
a MythBusters episode on this on the Discovery Channel and
proven that, you know that the windows do last about
three minutes once the vehicles underwater. Now, if you do
have the old crank style windows, um, of course you
want to get those down as quickly as possible. One
(06:58):
thing that you've got to be very careful out and
this is something that you really wouldn't think. I guess
it's kind of instinct to grab that and really just
start cranking fast. Some people actually break the crank the
window crank in your hand, and that would be a
horrible feeling, wouldn't it. Yes, that's a that's a terrible one,
It really would. And the other thing is that you know,
once the water level gets up to the window, you're
(07:21):
gonna have a very tough time rolling that down. So again,
do it quickly if you can, but calmly. Yeah, so
you're number one priority. First thing, don't open the door
to try to roll down the window, and you should
still be able to roll it, you know, assuming that
you're conscious. Um, and get your seatbelt off, uh, would
(07:41):
be the next step. That is the next step. That's right,
And uh, you know what, can we kind of stop
here for one second. I'm gonna bring a little dark
twist to this whole thing. And I mean we haven't
even thought about this yet, but um, there's a chance
that you could be knocked out. I guess if you
hit the water hard enough, right, Um, air bags and
all that go off. But I mean, if you're knocked
out and hit the water, Uh, your car is gonna
(08:02):
float for a little while. Then the car is gonna
sink and it's gonna fill with water. Um, you've got
a few minutes and and likely you'll come around. I mean,
you know, the water may wake you up. You may
you know, you know when people kind of slap somebody's
face and bring them to I have a feeling that
cold water would do the same thing and rushing in
on you. However, I may be wrong, but that's kind
of a thing that you don't really tend to think of.
(08:24):
You think, like when it hits the water, I'm gonna
have a few minutes to take care of all this.
But I guess there's some people that don't. Well, that's
that's a really interesting point, Scott, because that's something where
you're escaping a sunken car rather than a sinking one,
which we'll get to because that's kind of the final
worst case almost scenario, right But um okay, one last
little thing too before we move on past this, and
(08:46):
this is this is kind of crazy. But until I
read it, I didn't even think about this angle. Ben
some people there, their first instinct is going to be
to grab their cell phone and try to make a
phone call from from the sinking car. Now I know,
but I really believe that some people will do this
because of the way, because it's kind of like the
go to device for a lot of people. As soon
as anything happens, you know, the tire sounds like it's
(09:09):
going flat. Before they're even pulled over on the side
of the road, they've already got the phone in the
hand trying to call um, you know, a spouse, brothers, sister, whoever,
to come out and help them out in some way
something or whatever. People go to their phones first. In
this case, it could uh it could really, it could
endanger you, especially if they're kids in the car. There
are other people need to worry about. It costs you
(09:30):
valuable time, and time is of the essence here in
this situation. Right, So, okay, I didn't mean to interrupt
our flow here, but let's move on to uh. I
guess the third thing that you mentioned briefly is you
unbuckle your seatbelt right If you can unbuckle it, if
it's tangled, you're going to have to remove it somehow,
Which is why, uh, why we should take some time
(09:50):
if you are with the sidebar, Scott, and talk about
some of the tools that we found out about. Yes,
because this leads into the next one as well. Right, Okay,
so let's talk about the tools. So we have found
some recommendations for tools. These companies are not paying us
to talk about this um and I actually have owned one.
I never had to use it to escape a sinking car.
(10:12):
That's good, But one of my aunts gave it to
me when I first started driving. It was by far
my favorite car accessory, and that was the life hammer. Then,
now do you still carry the life hammer? I included
it in my last car. I don't have it in
this room. You can tell by the smile. The smile
you know. And they say that if you do have
(10:33):
one of these, the best thing to do is not
to tuck it into a glove compartment or some way
out of the way. Even under the seat is not
a great idea. They actually have mounting brackets that you
can mount them kind of near your near your shin.
I guess on the driver's side, yeah, like on the Yeah,
I guess, on the panel next to your right leg
or left leg, I guess, yeah. I used to keep
mine in the driver's side door compartment, and then I
(10:58):
ended up putting it betwean the on the right side
of the seat, between them the console, armrest and the
seat itself. I think as long as it's within arm's
reach and you know exactly where it is, and you
could find it even if you weren't you didn't see it,
if you could reach your hand out and grab it.
That's what they're looking for, not in a glove box.
So what does it? What does it do? Oh? Yeah,
(11:20):
it's a multi functional tool, and you know, I love
multifunctional stuff. And uh, it's got a couple of components
that are very important in these sorts of situations. Probably
the number one is a steel point, which doesn't feel
like it's too heavy, but can break most auto glass
unless you know you're in a presidential limo or something,
(11:43):
and then you're already in a very different situation. Right. Uh.
It also has a small blade which can be used
to cut seat belts, and the one that I had
also had a flashlight attached to it. Very effective tool,
that's nice. The blade that you mentioned that, I've watched
that in action and that is that's pretty amazing. It
quickly severs a seatbelt. I mean it's a danger. It
(12:05):
has a guard on it normally, right, you don't have
an open blade in the car, but because that would
be dangerous if you're grabbing for the tool in the dark,
or water or whatever, and yeah, you'd lose a finger.
I mean, it's extremely sharp. But when when you run
that thing across the seat belt, it's incredibly quick. I mean,
and it's got a guard on. It's built in a
in a smart way so that you know you won't
likely cut yourself when you're using this thing, if even
(12:27):
if you're in a panic. Yeah, it's kind of recessed
into the handle or the grip itself so that the
seat belt will slide into that area. Sure, I've seen
letter openers in the same belt in the same way.
It's a really good point. Similar, But that's not the
only tool. No, that's right, there's others. And you know what,
I've I've watched a few videos of one that was
really impressive to me. And again this is not a
product placement or anything like that, but but it honestly,
(12:50):
I would back this thing. It's amazing, it really is.
It's so cool to watch this in action. It's called
the Rescue Me and that's spelled r E S capital
q m E and it's just a pretty amazing little tool.
It's it's something that you wouldn't think it's possible with
this little tiny key chain device. It's a spring loaded
spike and all you have to do is, of course
(13:10):
the spring is loaded, you know. You you load the
spring and you put that device against the window, pop
the button, and the window just shatters. And it's like
you just then just poke it out with your hands softly,
you know. It's it's the easiest thing ever. It's like
ten dollars to it is. It's not very expensive, and
it can It's a key chain thing that you could
just have right there, you know, in ignition. It doesn't
get much handier than that. I mean, you know right
where to go for it. So, um, it's just a
(13:32):
cool thing if you get a chance. Uh, take a
look at, you know, some of the rescue Me videos
and you'll see when they go to the junkyard, they
can just blow out these windows in a matter of seconds.
It's amazing. No. Um, let's say that you're in that
situation and you're you've already taken off the seatbelt, who
(13:52):
got the window down or something? Uh, but you're not alone.
You have kids in the cars, someone unconscious, someone who
needs help. Uh. The most important stuff to remember there
is first, get your seat belt taken care of, get
the window, take care of as soon as you can
get and if you have kids in there. Um, I've
(14:14):
heard different things about how to make sure the kids
get out, like do they ideally go through their own windows?
How do they fight the force of the water pushing in?
You know what I mean? So what do you think
is that? All? Right? My My thoughts on this are
that you take care of your own seat belt first,
then you assist anybody else. And there's a good reason
for that. I mean, your instinct would be to help
(14:34):
your kids, probably immediately, right of course, but you have
to be able to freely maneuver yourself around as well,
So take care of your own seat belt first. I
know that's a little bit counterintuitive to some parents, uh
you know who were I guess would instinctively go to
the kids seat belts and try to get them out,
But um, good thought. But you know, you have to
save yourself to be able to save them, so you know,
(14:55):
it's a it's a bad situation to be and I
understand that. But the other thing about the water coming in.
I've heard a few different things on this, like, um,
you know, of course you want to get everybody out quickly, right,
and you want to be able to swim out with
the kid. But the problem is you're trying to swim
out through a window that's pretty small. So um, you
would definitely get the kid out first and then yourself
(15:18):
out first. So you hand, if it's a young young kid,
you would you would kind of feed them through the window,
I guess as the you know, even if the water
is pouring in. I know it's difficult, but you you
feed them out first, then yourself because the last thing
you wanted to have the kids stuck in the car
as it sinks. Yeah. So we'll follow that train of
thought to some different places. But we do have an
advertisement of sorts today. What are we what are we
(15:40):
gonna advertise? We're advertising our car stuff Dream Cars series,
So we're advertising ourselves. Yeah, yeah, that sounds fair. Why not.
Somebody's got to do it, right. Yeah. Well, it's a
free show and it's a really cool thing that we're doing. Yeah,
we lucked out you guys, longtime listeners, you have probably heard.
Uh Scott and I talked earlier about the field trip
(16:03):
that we recently took to the High Museum of Art
in Atlanta. Uh, where you might be thinking, wait, a
second an art museum, But that's not the whole story, right, Scott,
That's right. It's it's the dream cardause of it. And
of course you know it had amazing concept vehicles from
boy woman was at the nineteen forties even I think
ye the way through well through the present day really
(16:25):
if you count that portion that we saw so um yeah,
I mean it was an amazing collection. We had some
time to not so much hands on be around the cars,
but we could be around the cars and it was
really really fun, a lot of fun. And we we
recorded a few episodes you know, where we highlight certain
certain vehicles and uh and we threw them up on
our YouTube channel for How Stuff Works. Yes, you can
(16:48):
go to YouTube with how Stuff Works right now and
check out those videos. We do hope you enjoy them,
and we hope you let us know what you think,
because you might be seen some uh more series coming
from us soon. So keep your eyes peeled. Yeah, not
just the dream cards of it, but some other stuff
around town that we find interesting and hopefully you'll find
(17:08):
interesting as well. Yeah, and we also brought back some
videos if you like history of cars and you're kind
of into cartoons, uh, you should check out these videos
that Scott Boyce um, which are animated recounts of everything
from what the famous laments start to how an F
(17:28):
one crew changes tire so quickly, the Pike's Peak International
Hill Climb. There's some there's some cool stuff there, so
so check it out the House Stuff Works YouTube channel
and uh and you'll find our stuff by just searching
for car stuff. And later when people say, oh, man,
I love that show or those people, you can say, yeah,
well I knew him from their YouTube days when they
(17:50):
only did a podcast. They only that's the one. That's
the that's the key. But getting back to this, uh,
we left off where we left when we reached a
crossroads Scott the successful escape right, Yeah, that's right, and
swimming out of a vehicle where water is pouring in,
which is difficult for even a really good swimmer. So
(18:10):
this is something that's not easy, but you've got to
keep up that struggle. You've got to get out of
that vehicle before it goes down. And then the next question,
what happens when you're out, when you're free from the car,
but you're still underwater. Well, one thing that can be
very dangerous to a lot of people in emergency situations
in the water is panicking and thrashing around at a
(18:31):
wasted energy a lot of wasted energy um and could
be very dangerous to be in that water depending on
the temperature, you know. Like another thing we didn't talk
about is if you fall into ice. Oh yeah, that's
the other thing. I mean, there's so many different scenarios.
You can't prepare for all of them, right, right, You
made up in a swamp with with dangerous wildlife around you,
that's true, man, I you know, I hate to bring
(18:52):
up all these bad scenarios. I mean, some of these
are worst case obviously, and you wouldn't want to end
up in a swamp with alligators around you or anything
like that. Like the crashes has scared them away. However, Uh,
you're gonna have to deal with that at some point, right,
But we know that, we know that regardless of the situation,
there are a few rules that will be silver bullet rules.
(19:13):
Uh there, you know, seatbelt, window, getting other passengers out,
especially if they're incapacitated, helping them. And then once you
are in the water, once you're free, don't thrash around. Remember,
just hold hold your breath. You can. You're going to
float up unless you're encumbered by a lot of weight.
(19:33):
That's true. I'm not a natural floater though, you know,
when I'm in the pool, I'm a sinker. And I
think some people are in that boat too. So you're
gonna have to You're gonna have to swim. But hopefully
it's not a very long swim, and hopefully it's not
a very difficult swim because we mentioned, you know, the
water rushing in and all that. And hopefully it's not
current because that's that's another worst case scenario. Band. What
if it's a river with a strong current, that's another problem. Yeah,
(19:55):
that becomes another problem. Man, I just keep kind of
the more problems. Sorry, I'm bringing it down. Well, we
knew what this was gonna be when we went into
I guess it's it's never good when a car goes
in the water. It's never good when even a golf
cart goes in the water, and it's it's all bad. Well,
sometimes it's funny when a golf cart goes to the water.
It is. I've seen plenty of times when you know,
it's funny when a golf cart goes in the water.
As someone who has aided and embedded uh Franks involving
(20:20):
driving golf carts in the water. Uh, you know, you
can have a good time with it. It's destructive. But
no further questions. Oh no, no, that's I don't want
to incriminate you in anyway. Is there a statue golf
cart submersion? Yeah? Exactly, so then let's uh again, we
have to move to the point here where this is
this is bad. Okay, Yeah, let's go. Let's keep getting darker.
(20:41):
All right. What happens if you don't get out of
the car and it's sunken and the windows that haven't
gone down? Right? Okay. The problem with this is that,
as we've told you before, is the water pressure and
you're not going to be able to open the door
until the pressure equalizes. As I'm sure a lot of
people have heard in the past, you gotta wait for
the interior of the vehicle to completely fill with water
(21:04):
before the pressure equalizes and you're able to open that door.
You're not gonna be able to do it prior to that.
The problem with this has been it takes a lot
longer than you might think for the car the interior
to completely fill up and you're going to continue to
panic as this is happening because the car is going down.
It's likely dark, because you're gonna have this lack of
his ability because it's deep enough water that the car
(21:26):
is completely submerged. Right, Because that's the situation you're in.
And as the water comes in, it's not going to
just rush in like you think. You know from every
little crevice in corner. Cars are built fairly tight. Now
it's going to take a while. And of course, you know,
if you didn't get the window down, you know, the
water is not gonna come in as quickly as it
would um if that happened. So you're gonna have to
have a new strategy, right, Yeah, Now you'll you'll hear
(21:50):
people with a couple of different ideas here. Uh. One
thing that we've tried to do is some up the
most important stuff. You've got to get that window open
some how because it's going to help the pressure. If
you're already underwater, it's gonna help the pressure. Break it
if you can, right, don't try to open your car
if it's been past three minutes. Those electric what windows
(22:13):
aren't gonna work. But if you can break it, you're
gonna have to do something that sounds really, really weird,
which is sit still and wait for the water to rise.
Take take deep breaths very slowly. You're trying to oxygenate
yourself as much as you can. And then once it
(22:35):
gets I know this sounds crazy, you guys, but once
it gets to about your chin, it's go time. Yeah,
that's right. You gotta wait, wait, wait, And and the
thing is you're sitting there, bear seatbelt off, of course,
and it's slowly filling. You've got to try to get
that last gasp of air. And that's critical. And you
gotta tell your passengers what the plan is. You gotta
(22:55):
tell them because if they don't know what's going on,
you gotta tell them what you have to do. And
in this maybe one of the most difficult things as well,
everybody's panicking. Because people are going to panic. You gotta
you gotta kind of take control of the situation and
let the rest of the people in the vehicle know
we've got this, we can do we can do this.
We're on the way out. We're just waiting for our
you know, waiting for our the right time. That's right.
(23:17):
And and again the struggle with the door handle. You know,
you may you may end up ripping that door handle
off in your hand because you're gonna be panicked. So
try to be as gentle as you possibly can and
make sure the doors are unlocked. You know, you can
manually unlock even even electric car doors, you can manly
manually unlock them. So don't really have to worry about that.
I mean you can do it, but get all that
(23:38):
stuff in line ahead of time, so that the last
thing you have to do is open that door and
swim to safety and use the side window. We haven't
we haven't explicitly said that, so we need to be specific.
Don't use don't try the wind shield or the rear windshield. Yeah,
you'll never break out that front wind shield because it's
a safety the safety glass thing right right. And the
other the other windows they can shedder, but they take
(23:58):
a lot of effort to do it. I mean it
takes uh, you know, a tool like we mentioned. Uh,
you would be lucky to break it out with your
foot if you were trying to kick it. You know,
that's that's probably not a good way to go at it.
Some people say that that works. It's it's not a
good way, it's very very difficult to break a side
window on a car. You need a tool or um,
you know what. And if you you know, some people
(24:19):
carry you know, a weapon in the car, a gun,
hammer even, yeah, whatever you've got. I mean, if you
can shoot that window out, if you can smash that
window out, whatever you can do, use one of these
special tools, uh to get out, you know, the rescue
me or the life hammer or you know, any of
the tools that are like that. Um, make sure you
have those on hand. I mean, I know it sounds
like a little bit of overkill to have something like
this in the car all times, but um, you know
(24:41):
why not. Well, I would rather do overkill than be killed.
I mean, the the boy Scout Be Prepared motto is
is pretty on point. Honestly, I agree. And you know what,
there's one more little scenario that I think we need
to mention here that that is another uncomfortable truth that happens,
and the as if you if you go into deep water, yeah,
(25:02):
if you're we're talking about this right before we recorded,
if you enter a body of water that is more
than fifteen ft deep, you run the risk of well
the probability of being in in a situation that might
have you all kinds of mixed up on the roof. Yep, yep,
the car will will likely end up on the roof.
(25:23):
And uh, this is a bad, bad scenario being because
now you're in dark water potentially. Uh you know, you're panicked,
You're trying trying to do all the stuff that we
talked about, you know, wait for the water to fill up, etcetera.
And the cars upside down, you're disoriented. It's just it's
a bad situation. Ben Like, all these are bad, bad scenares,
I know. But if you just, you know, follow these
five simple, simple steps, Like there's there's a way to
(25:46):
break it down into five clear, concise things that you
need to do to get out, and this will keep
you safe if you can stay calm. That's number one.
That's probably the hardest one. Right open the windows immediately
or break the window, whichever you have the ability to
do quickly, do it fast, really fast. Number three on
fasten your seat belt and then you know your own
(26:06):
seatbelt first, and then help others, So get out of
that seat belt. Make sure that you're able to escape
the vehicle. Number four, exit through the window. Sounds easy,
but you know, do it again as fast as you can.
If you can do it while you're still floating, all
the better. You know, don't try the door even, just
just try to get out of that window. UM. And
you know, the worst case I guess is you're swimming
against the current a little bit as it's pouring in. UM.
(26:28):
Then last one, swim to safety. Don't stay out in
the water, don't try to tread water, wait for someone
to arrive whatever, Get to the shore, grab onto something
that's floating, do anything that you can, but get away
from that vehicle and UH and get to safety. There
was a really good quotation we found in the course
of the research by guy named ken Burton. He's a
president of a place called Stark Survival, so he got
(26:52):
its helicopter operators worldwide UH to teach an underwater egress
class UM. And he has had a lot of experience
with these sorts of situations. And one thing he said
is don't worry about going up or going down. When
you take all those deep breaths and hold it, it's
like you're inflating a balloon. AH. So you're right, you
(27:13):
would float to the surface. I guess if you're if
you're holding your breath. You're right, I mean swim. Yeah,
you're exactly right. But I guess I'm thinking more of
like when I'm trying to float on my back or
something like that. I'm a sinker that way. But if
I were to take in a lung full of air,
You're right, it would. You would float. Anybody would, So yeah,
that's right. I mean, even if you're wearing heavy clothing,
maybe maybe the advice would be to get rid of
(27:34):
heavy clothing too. Yeah. I think it's I think it's
also just a good a good mental picture to help
someone relax. I'm laking a balloon. That's what I would
be telling myself. I'm a balloon floating in the sky.
That doesn't work. I'm a balloon floating to the surface
something like that. I don't know, man, I'm a peaceful
little bubble floating to the top of the top of
(27:57):
the pond. You know. Uh. I heard that Keith Drummer
from for the Who uh drove one of his cars
on his estate into a lake. No kidding, Yeah, we
had to like do an emergency escaped. It's really nice,
really nice car. I can't remember what it was, but
I don't think the lake was at the Keith. I
think it was just Keith Moon being Keith Moon. Interesting. Yeah,
(28:17):
I'll find out. I have to look that one up
and see what he drove in in the situation. I
guess maybe right on his own property. Yes, so, but
I won't confirm or unconfirmed that story. Um, it's good.
I think I'm about done here except for some procedural business.
You've got one more thing. I do have one more
(28:38):
thing that I'd like to include one more alright later
on me. All right, So, I we mentioned early on
in this podcast that there's some bad, bad situations where
where people go missing for long periods of time, and
these are the vehicles that are underwater, the ones that
the ones specifically that I'm talking about are the ones
(28:59):
that end up under water and discovered years, sometimes decades later.
And it happens. It really does happen. I can't believe
I've forgot this. This is one of the most interesting
parts of this episode. It is it can well, it
can be. And you know, it goes back to the uh,
you know, the the Urban Legends podcast that we've done
and that we've done a whole bit about, you know,
the missing vehicles and missing teenagers. They go out for
(29:20):
the evening and you know, wind up in a canal
in Florida somewhere. And that's true. It really did happen.
I mean, it's it's happened, probably more than we know yet.
Even I'm guessing Ben that their cars out there right
now that you know, they're just sitting there waiting for
somebody to find them. I know that's I know that's
the case, because well, you know, this happens, Ben more
often they might think, And it's happened for a long
(29:42):
since the beginning of the automobile. I would think, you know,
it has to have. But the recent cases that I
can think of start about and I know there are
other famous, you know, cases of missing people being found
in deep water, etcetera. But um, the one that I
instantly go to is that happened in March of seven.
There were five teenagers that were in a van that
(30:03):
ended up in a twenty ft deep canal in Florida,
and they had been missing since nineteen seventy nine, so
this is eighteen years later when they found them. And
this is the one band that I think I mentioned.
I was in Florida when they found this thing. It
was big news all over the place, but huge news
down there. It was. It just dominated the news for
cycle for a long long time. Um. The next one
(30:23):
that I can really think of, um, happened in or
top of the mine anyways. Happened in September. This is
when they found those two cars side by side, several cars.
It was what a training exercise, right, yeah, and a
training exercise gone bad? How many? Well, yes, you're right,
I mean it went bad. And that they found some bodies, right,
(30:44):
I mean they were in a shallow pond lake or
whatever you wanna call it. I think it was, um,
I want to say it's called Fosse Lake. I think
it's Foss Lake. And they were testing sonar equipment and
they found a car and this is on you. You know,
they think, well, this is strange. Fine, they find out
that there are three bodies inside the car and it
had been missing since I believe nineteen nine. And you know,
(31:05):
digging through this, they find this out later, right, Well,
just a few feet away from that car, they found
another car with another three bodies in it the same
exact day, so, and that would have been missing since
nineteen seventy so these cars had been in there, you know,
they went in a year apart. They found them the
same day, but they had been missing for forty plus years.
That's how long they have been there. Yeah, And my
question here is how many of these things happened because
(31:28):
their accidents. How many people are you know, put in
the water purposefully to dispose of a body? Could be?
Could be? I mean I can think of two more
Actually one more example. They came from that exact same year.
Now this is again September, the same month that they
found those bodies. In Oklahoma, they found two girls, two
missing teens. They were seventeen years old. They found them
(31:50):
in a in a creek bed that had I guess
there was like something like a drought and then a
flood and then a drought again and exposed this vehicle
that had been there for something like forty two years. Been. Uh,
they had disappeared a long long time ago. It was
in South Dakota. They disappeared in ninete and this is
the first they had found them. So, uh, you know,
(32:11):
these missing persons cases, um, you know, sometimes this is
the way they're solved. And there's a kind of a
big thing going on down in Houston right now that
maybe not a lot of people know about what's going
on in in two thousand fourteen, may have two thousand fourteen.
So this year they were I forget what they're looking for. Oh,
they were looking for a missing woman. And they were
already looking for this. They thought maybe this was the
(32:32):
case that she had driven into um, you know, one
of these uh bayou. I guess because Houston has a
bunch of buy us out in the outlying regions. And
so they were searching for this, uh, this eighty two
year old woman who was missing. Um, I don't know
how long she's missing or what the circumstances were, but
they're looking for her in her vehicle, and they were
(32:53):
using the sonar equipment, sophisticated sonar equipment. They ended up
finding one hundred and twenty seven submerged cars in the
Houston Bayous. Now when I hear this, okay, my instant
thought it goes to people covering up crimes, people covering
up assurance fraud, etcetera. But they're saying that a lot
of these may end up solving missing persons cases. Now,
(33:15):
how intriguing is that that in the Bayous there's one
hundred and twenty seven cars that as far as I know,
are still there because the Sheriff's Department where the the
Houston Police Department, has said they've got a record and said,
we just don't have the money or the resources to
attack this situation right now. We don't have we done
the money to bring them up. It's expensive to bring
(33:36):
up one car exactly, so they're trying to What they're
trying to do is they're trying to get the license
plate numbers from all these cars. They're sending divers down,
which is also kind of expensive. They're sending divers down
to investigate they make and model, and even the license
plates if they have them on them still because it's
a crime situation, they may not. Um, So there's a
lot of Uh, I guess it's probably been numbers too. Yeah,
(33:59):
there's a is a lot of speculation as to what
these one, d and twenty seven cars are going to
yield once they do bring them to the surface or
once they can investigate them. First. Well, let me point
out something here. Uh, the idea of disposing of a
body via a submerged car is distressingly plausible because it
(34:21):
is so expensive to remove a car, and then after
a certain amount of time where the evidence of the
cars passage, you know, fades away, the tire tracks get
reined out, plants grow over it. See that's the thing
some of some cases, you know, someone drives into a
bayou like this, you know, inadvertently, and you know, the
(34:41):
next day it rains. There's no evidence that the vehicle
ever went off the road, right, which is why it's dangerous.
It's also why I'm I am certain Scott, and I
do not mean to sound more bid or dark, but
I am objective and certain that there are hundreds of
other cars that have been discovered across the United States
(35:02):
just because it's so big, and uh, some of those
were probably murders, absolutely, and I firmly believe that as well.
And you know this this Houston case, I mean, you know,
i'd have to see like where I just almost see
a map and see where they're dropped. If it's like
a if it's one specific spot, you know, maybe that's
a crime ring that you know, that was a location
(35:22):
that they could easily dump vehicles and uh and just
get rid of them for insurance for and I'm sure
that uh, several of those are just honest and tragic accidents. UM,
and there might be might even be people who stole
cars and then just drove them into the biou. Yeah,
but let's just think. Let's think that even if one
percent of these vehicles contains a dead body, you know,
(35:45):
you know, in some way, either the driver drove into
the into the biou inadvertently or on purpose, maybe you know,
a suicide situation something like that, or if somebody, uh
you know better check the trunks of these you know
what I mean, could be something like that, you know,
where there there may be somebody's in the trunks. Um,
even if the one percent of these cars that's still
(36:06):
you know, maybe two people that they'll find in this,
I mean, that would be so worth it for them
to um bring those vehicles up from from the depths.
I guess, you know, I don't know how deep these
these values are, but apparbably deep enough to conceal you know,
big sedans or trucks or whatever they happen to be. UM,
you know, this is this is something they need to
investigate and get down to the bottom of it. And
(36:26):
I hope that, I hope that they do something with this.
I'm gonna kind of watch this one because I'm so
intrigued by what's going to come out of those seven cars.
We're going to keep an eye on this. And as
you can tell, our our episode went a little bit
Halloween at the end. Yeah, a little bit. Yeah, but
it's it's the time of the season, right, And uh,
what we'd also like to do before we end this
(36:47):
show is a little bit of listener mail. All right,
So I have a letter here, Ben that it's actually
via Facebook, and it's from a listener from a long
time ago, Ben, someone that's that's a a loyal listener. Yeah,
that's it's Mark Nighthawk Bandoni. Oh hey, Mark, how's it going?
And uh? He writes in often, you know, right back
(37:07):
and forth, Facebook, email, whatever. Um, but he writes in
and says that he's got he's got a question. He says,
I've got a question for you guys. Have you ever
watched a movie that takes place in a certain time period,
like say the nineteen seventies, and ever wonder where the
movie studio gets all those cars in the background. Do
they have a warehouse full of cars from different photo
or from different periods, or do they put an ad
(37:29):
in the paper asking for certain cars from certain time periods,
you know, to arrive on set, and he just wonders like,
is there a warehouseful of old cars? And who takes
care of them? You know? The question has always bug
me every time I watch a movie. Do you guys
have any idea on how that works? Or maybe you
guys could do a podcast under or something. Well, I
don't know if there's a whole podcast worth of material here, Mark,
(37:49):
But um, I do happen to know the answer to this. Ah, yes,
And the answer is a little bit from column A
little bit from column B. Right, Yeah, that's exactly right.
So you know, the st videos, as we know, they
have tremendous collections of vehicles of all different makes and models,
and they have, um, you know, departments that can work
on these cars and make them look appure or appure
(38:09):
as they want to. And sometimes, you know, for certain situations,
look out and and gather a lot of vehicles from
a certain era, you know, for that thing like let's
say that you know, they're doing the Star Skin Hutch movie,
They're gonna have to go out and get fifteen cars
of the same making model, the Grand Torino, right, and
you know they're going to destroy them, and so some
are in a certain condition, others are in better conditions
(38:31):
for the stuff exactly right. Now. What he's talking about, though,
is say that they're driving through a shopping mall parking lot,
and all the cars in that background they can't be from,
you know, the mid two thousands. They have to be
at least the seventies or earlier, exactly right. So there's
a there's a a I guess, a an era of
vehicles that have to be present in order for it
(38:52):
to make to look authentic, right, right, And so one
of the things that will happen in that case is, like,
as you guessed, Mark correct uh, an open casting call
for cars, exactly right. They'll put an ad in the
local paper. And I know this is the case because
when I lived in Michigan, I lived in north of Detroit.
That happened at yeah, it probably did, but this one
(39:13):
I know in particular because it happened just before I left.
Um the movie Semi Pro. Do you remember the movie
Semi Pro. It was with Will Ferrell. I think it
was around two thousand eight, and it was about the
What was it about? It was about the Flint Tropics,
the semi pro basketball team that wanted to go pro.
And there's a whole storyline there. It's funny. I've never
(39:35):
seen this one, all right, So they the story is
supposed to be happening. Um, I think it's between ninety
seven and nineteen seventy six is when the the A
b A was around, the American Basketball Association, and that
was roughly when they wanted this to happen. So they said,
every person in the area that has a car that
pre dates this date, whatever it was, nineteen seventy six, maybe, um,
(39:58):
you know, show up and we'll we'll put you in
the you know the crowd scenes, I guess in the
in the stadium parking lot. And sure enough, you know,
everybody turned out with their cars. The thing is, if
you look at the movie, and I've I've carefully watched this,
anybody that shows up with a car like this, they're
not gonna show up with like what you would consider
the cars would look like then. You know, kind of
everyday drivers with dense and dings. A lot of the
(40:19):
cars that you'll see are almost like hot ride cars. Yeah,
I've tried to really you know, pick up on this
and other Um, you know movies where it's supposed to
happen in the nineteen sixties, and they've got a lot
of nineteen sixties cars. You'll see a lot of kind
of like hot ride versions because those are the people
that own them and want to bring them out for
stuff like this. But that's showing it's not really realistic
(40:39):
and that not everybody had a you know, hot ride
vehicle at that time. That's what that shopping mall parking
lot looked like. But there's another part with column A,
the idea of warehousing cars. And uh, this is where
we enter into something that I think is is fascinating,
which is the way that productions and production companies specialize
(41:05):
and work together. I think this is something we could
do in a Nuts and Bolts episode. But there are
companies that just simply own and rent out cars with
those with very specific and stringent guidelines. So they own
all pre war cars and they bring them out for
any movie that happens they take place pre war, right,
(41:27):
and then their their rules will be you know, these
cars for this stuff, these cars for this stuff. Um,
and they'll usually be approached by a studio if they're
looking for a very special type of car. Um, So
I guess, I guess. Then the answer to your question,
Mark is that it depends on the specificity. If it's
just a year that's a cut off, then it's more
(41:50):
likely to be an add in a paper. If they're
looking for, you know, four cars to fill a scene,
that's you know, a great big scene like a like
a a sporting event, talking lot, or you know a mall,
a shopping mall, like a traffic jam and set the
nineteen thirties. That would be something you have to go
to the pros four I think, yeah, and you know
they really real only require maybe you know, ten fifteen
(42:12):
cars total. And I say only, that's a lot to
gather in one spot. But compared to trying to gather
four hundred or five hundred or whatever. Um, you know,
let's say that's a small order. But thank you for
writing in Mark, that's an excellent question. We were talking
about this off the are for a little while. But Scott,
before we go, I have to go out on a
(42:33):
humble dope. Yeah, I have a correction, so big yeah,
with a big shout out to our super producer Noel,
how you doing? No? Uh no? Can we have some
correction music. Okay great. This correction comes with a shout
out to James Crossman, writing in on our Bullpen Cars episode.
(42:55):
James Crossman, Yeah, an old friend of mine. Oh yeah,
close friend. Oh cool. Well, Uh, James, I want to
tell you that I appreciate your correction and listeners. Uh,
here's what I got wrong. Uh, And I can't believe
I did this. I'm ashamed for the city. I brought
the sounder on our city. We were talking about the
(43:17):
braves before nineteen sixty six, and I'm pretty sure it
was me who called them the Atlanta Braves and they
were not the Atlanta Braves until nineteen sixty six. Now,
I had no idea, so maybe I was the one
in this book. I have no idea. But Jim, I'll
tell you, Jim knows his baseball. He's a baseball fan
from a long time ago. He's he's a good friend
(43:40):
of mine from Michigan. And uh, I know he's been
listening starting recently. Um, I say maybe the beginning of
the summer. And he writes in off and he's he's
always got some really really good comments. So yeah, the
timeline that we were talking about, they would actually have
been the Boston Braves at that time, Baseball his story
and fellow Car Stuff listeners, we have been corrected, and
(44:05):
with that we are out. If you would like to
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(44:26):
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