Coffin With Wheels

While he was stationed at Mare Island, one weekend he and several buddies decided to make the long run over to Las Vegas for the weekend. Perry, the guy who owned the car had just bought it ~ a brand new Packard.

1950 Packard

And he, of course was driving, besides Perry and Chuck there were five other guys. All except Perry were under the influence. Chuck told me they were on a long lonely straight stretch of desert highway with nothing for many miles.

They eventually came up behind another car headed in the same direction as they were going. Chuck was a back seat passenger and he could see the speed odometer from where he sat and the last time he looked as they were passing the other vehicle it read 105 mph.

When Perry cut back in he cut it too close and his rear bumper clipped the front bumper of the other car. This caused them to flip upside down, and skid. I don’t recall the exact footage of how far down the pavement they slid before it came to a stop, but it was quite a distance.

Chuck said, “It must have knocked me unconscious when we flipped and hit, and when I came to it was so deathly quiet, and my first thoughts were I’m dead, and just as I was about convinced that I was dead because of the eerie silence, the radio began to blare with that corny old song ‘Tennessee Border’. He said, I hated that song, but it sounded like heavenly music to my ears!”

He had no idea how long he’d been unconscious, and it was very dark out there in the desert, and then some of the others began to stir and call out to each other. They were packed in there like sardines.

At long last a Highway Patrolman or a Deputy Sheriff came by and stopped. The Officer shined his light in on them and they began to stir and crawl out from wherever they could find a place to crawl out at.

Chuck said, “All seven of us crawled out of that car alive and only one guy had a small injury, his arm had gone through a broken window and had cut his wrist a small cut that had bled on the sleeve of his jacket a little bit. He said the engine was where the front seat had been.”

None of them were too shaken up about it at the time; because they were all drunk except Perry, the car was totaled! The guy driving the other car had been able to maintain control of his vehicle, and was able to bring his car to a stop and he was also uninjured.

Chuck said, “The next day after we had sobered up, we went back and had another look at the car before we headed back to the base, when it flipped upside down, and slid down the highway it had worn all of the metal down to the door handles.”  They didn't make Vegas that weekend!

Coffin With Wheels

He said, “I shook like a leaf in a hail storm for days with my imagination running wild; just thinking about what could have happened to us, but we had all walked away unhurt, and from that day forward I had a much healthier respect for vehicles, but I came to see them as nothing more than a coffin with wheels!”