[ACCIDENT] Elderly Man Attempting to Parallel Park His SUV Destroys a C5 Corvette in Five Seconds

By
Mitch Talley
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12
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[ACCIDENT] Elderly Man Attempting to Parallel Park His SUV Destroys a C5 Corvette in Five Seconds


We’ve shown you a lot of crash videos over the years on CorvetteBlogger, but today’s certainly qualifies as one of the most unusual.

You might call it Amityville Horror II, in fact.

That’s because this Torch Red 1998 Corvette coupe (complete with six-speed manual transmission!) was destroyed in a matter of a few seconds Saturday afternoon in Copiague, New York – which by the way is just a couple of miles away from Amityville (yes, that Amityville) – by a Honda Pilot trying to parallel park in front of it outside a business there.

Corvette driver Darwin Martinez had just gotten a haircut about 5:20 p.m. and was sitting in his car waiting to pull out, “but I couldn’t go anywhere because there was a white Honda Pilot blocking the lane” in front of him, he explains in a YouTube video posted recently on the itow channel.

[ACCIDENT] Elderly Man Attempting to Parallel Park His SUV Destroys a C5 Corvette in Five Seconds


Out of nowhere, Martinez says the Pilot driver “just stepped on the gas so fast and started to back up so quick and went over my car. One second later, I see his rear wheels going through my windshield.”

Indeed, the video captures the hood of the Corvette flying into the air over the top of the car and winding up propped against the driver’s side rear fender – along with other major damage inflicted to the front half of the car, including a smashed windshield. The Honda, meanwhile, wound up at an angle facing the sidewalk, with its rear tires balanced in the air atop the Corvette.

[ACCIDENT] Elderly Man Attempting to Parallel Park His SUV Destroys a C5 Corvette in Five Seconds


In an interview tonight with CorvetteBlogger, Martinez says because he is so lightweight, it was fairly easy for him to push himself up and exit the car through the passenger door, once he was sure the coast was clear and the Pilot had stopped moving.

Miraculously, he wasn’t hurt in the freak accident, other than a cut on his left hand when he pushed down on the seat to get out of the car and apparently touched some broken glass from the windshield. The awkward movement getting out of the Corvette also stretched some muscles in his back, he added.

[ACCIDENT] Elderly Man Attempting to Parallel Park His SUV Destroys a C5 Corvette in Five Seconds


Once out of his car, Martinez immediately went over to check on the other driver to “make sure he’s okay, so I walk over to his car and I see he’s still alive, he’s breathing, he’s there, he looks good. And he’s like, let me back up a little bit. He was still trying to back up because he thought he was on the curb. I said, sir, you’re not going anywhere, you’re over my car. You just destroyed my car. Everything happened so fast – he was so confused. He really thought he was over the curb. I said, no sir, you’re over my car. Just leave it where it is, don’t do nothing.”

The elderly Honda driver, shown in the video standing behind a walker and apparently unaware he was driving on a suspended driver’s license, explained in the video how he was just trying to parallel park his Pilot. He says he stopped when he saw the Corvette’s headlights, but then looked back again to his left and didn’t see those lights anymore so he thought it was safe to just “whip it” into the parking spot. “Next thing you know, just crunch, crunch, crunch, crunch,” he said. “I couldn’t see his car anymore.”

“Of course he couldn’t see my car anymore,” Martinez said, “because he was on top of my car! There’s no way he could see it.”

[ACCIDENT] Elderly Man Attempting to Parallel Park His SUV Destroys a C5 Corvette in Five Seconds


The video also captures some impressive work by a Long Island company named Bang’s Towing called to remove the Pilot from atop the Corvette. Take a look at how well the veteran tow driver was able to jockey the Honda onto his rollback, and by the way it was able to be driven away from the scene.

The same can’t be said for Martinez’s C5 that wound up torn apart and resting forlornly on the back of a rollback on the way to a storage facility. The accident really hit home for this writer as his car is identical to the ’97 that I liked so much I bought it twice and even drove it around the NCM Motorsports Park track during the 2014 Corvette Caravan.

Martinez, who’s owned his car about 2½ years, told us that he’s still waiting to hear from his insurance company whether his Corvette will have to be totaled or will be able to be repaired. Let’s hope he’s soon back in the Corvette flock!

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“You’ve got somebody watching over you,” a bystander can be heard saying to Martinez after the accident. “You’re lucky.”

That he is, but it wasn’t the first time he’s survived disaster. In 1998, Hurricane Mitch pounded through his native land of Honduras, forcing Martinez and his family to survive first on their own chickens, then on a neighbor’s chickens, and finally on rice for a period of several weeks.

Perhaps the thing that most impressed us about this video, however, is the overall strength displayed by the Corvette, which was able to support the weight of that big SUV and keep the Chevy driver from being crushed.


Source:
itow / YouTube

Related:
[ACCIDENT] C5 Corvette Crashes Into the Side of a Tennessee Home
[ACCIDENT] C8 Corvette Driver Crashes into Two Police Cars, Alcohol May be to Blame
[ACCIDENT] C5 Corvette Driver Sends Car Down a Steep Embankment and Into a Creek

 



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12 COMMENTS

  2. I seriously doubt the C5 is destroyed. Looks like some composite panels need replacing as well as the windshield. Possibly a repaint. Certainly no frame or structural damage. As for the Honda driver, he should lose his license permanently and probably do jail time. No way on Earth you get your car into that orientation, atop another while parking, without inebriation or criminal reckless driving.

  3. That old man should have his suspended license revoked forever. He doesn’t belong behind the wheel of any motor vehicle ever again.

  4. “Possibly a repaint”? Really? This is not a case of “I’ll bet that rubs out!” I bet the car is totaled by the insurance company.

  5. Joe Biden?? Really?? What a stupid and totally lame ass comment. I’ve seen him drive his own Personal Vette, he does just fine. What an A-hole. That Honda driver should never be allowed behind the wheel of ANYTHING!! This guy was much nicer then I would have been. I too used to have a Torch Red C5 a 97′. This stuff makes me ill.

  7. If a stupid idiot demolished either one of my Corvettes like that I would not be cool and calm about it like this dude. They would see the wrath of me. I also wouldn’t be out there grab assing around making a video of it and posting it on YouTube so the whole world could see my traumatic misfortune.

  9. I would love to park my Vette on top of Brandon Biden’s Vette. Hope there are no classified docs on the passenger seat. Could be embarrassing

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