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Close Call

Aired April 24, 2003 - 13:49   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Let's talk about the close call at the Indianapolis 500 for retired race car driver Mario Andretti. He was test-driving a car for his son Michael's racing team yesterday. He lost control of the vehicle and flipped at least five times, that we count. Amazingly, he walked away from this crash unhurt.
Now racing officials say debris left on the roadway from an earlier crash caused that accident. So how did he survive that crash? How did it happen. Joining me on the phone is John Melvin an expert on biomechanics of crash injury. He joins us from Detroit, is that right, or Ann Arbor?

JOHN MELVIN, CRASH INJURY EXPERT: Ann Arbor.

O'BRIEN: All right, Doctor Melvin, good to have you with us. I'm hoping you have CNN there so you can watch along with us.

MELVIN: Yes, I do.

O'BRIEN: This crash is so dramatic, it's hard to believe anybody could walk away. First thing's first. As you look at that, probably in excess of 200 miles an hour, right?

MELVIN: Well, his speed was. The crash wasn't. One of the big deals is that just because the car's going 200 doesn't mean he hits anything at 200 miles an hour.

O'BRIEN: OK, so what do you mean -- in other words, the relative speed of what he hits is important, right?

MELVIN: Right. The track doesn't move, but the car is moving. It's bouncing along the track. His actual crash speed into the track is not very much, because he didn't get very high in the air. But he is going along the track at a very high speed, like that. And when he takes off -- see, he's hitting -- it looks violent. It certainly is violent, but it's not 200 mile an hour crashing, that is, not the same as running into the wall at 200 miles an hour and stopping.

O'BRIEN: It's interesting, because, you know, those of us who remember seeing the Dale Earnhardt crash, which was obviously a fatal crash not nearly as dramatic as this one. The fact he sort of went airborne might have helped him perhaps because he slowed down as the car was tumbling.

MELVIN: Well, actually, the main thing is the car is tumbling. So there were a number of impacts, and as a result, each one was not as severe.

O'BRIEN: Interesting.

MELVIN: The car did slow down when it went up like that, because tremendous drag. These cars, at that speed, want to fly, and apparently the debris he ran over, put him upward enough it just took off like an airplane.

O'BRIEN: We have a couple stills. It's so hard, even in slow motion, to see what's going on there. I don't know if you can see that. As it kind of lifts off there, there's a little bit of an angle there. What you can't see are the wings that are on this, which are kind of the -- you would think of it as an upside down airplane wing, does just the opposite, pushes the air down as it goes across, right?

MELVIN: Right. When it tips up like that it now becomes -- the bottom of the car becomes a big air foil that makes it go up.

O'BRIEN: So suddenly, it is a wing, in the classic sense.

MELVIN: Yes.

O'BRIEN: Let's look at the next still. This one kind of hard to see what's going on there. Let's go...

MELVIN: There's a lot of debris. I wonder if it didn't hit somehow on the track, somewhere where we can't see it, and then started this.

O'BRIEN: All right, now, this right here is the car, OK.

MELVIN: Right.

O'BRIEN: And he said the whole event was just like it looked, to him -- I mean, to us. To him, I can only imagine what a driver is experiencing at this moment, except they know one thing -- they are really encased in a very, very extensive protection system, aren't they?

MELVIN: Right, the chassis or the tub, which is pretty much what remained afterwards, is enormously strong in an Indy car, and it is really their basis for protection. It keeps his space, therefore him. It doesn't crush in on him.

O'BRIEN: I got to ask quickly before we get away, can any of this technology, shouldn't it be applied for passenger vehicles? If Mario Andretti can walk away from this, shouldn't the car we drive to work be safer?

MELVIN: Well, we're hoping some day to do that. But there's a lot of things that has to be done on the research area to understand exactly why. If you build a car this strong, certainly, you could do pretty well. But you have to have all the rest of the things, the multipoint belts, the helmets, the head/neck restraints that drivers are wearing now, all of those things would have to be there for you to, in your passenger car, to protect, just like a race car. MELVIN: Yes, which would probably make it hard to put on makeup and make cell phone calls and drink coffee, so I guess we're not going to do that.

O'BRIEN: Right. But I'm convinced we will eventually learn enough from these race car crashes to provide an equivalent system in the passenger car some day. But it will take a lot of work. And it will make the cars heavier, probably, and more expensive.

John Melvin, I appreciate your time. He's an expert on the biomechanics of crash injury. Great insights. We appreciate you helping us to understand how a dramatic event like this can lead to somebody walking away and living to tell the story. You have a good day, sir.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com







Aired April 24, 2003 - 13:49   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Let's talk about the close call at the Indianapolis 500 for retired race car driver Mario Andretti. He was test-driving a car for his son Michael's racing team yesterday. He lost control of the vehicle and flipped at least five times, that we count. Amazingly, he walked away from this crash unhurt.
Now racing officials say debris left on the roadway from an earlier crash caused that accident. So how did he survive that crash? How did it happen. Joining me on the phone is John Melvin an expert on biomechanics of crash injury. He joins us from Detroit, is that right, or Ann Arbor?

JOHN MELVIN, CRASH INJURY EXPERT: Ann Arbor.

O'BRIEN: All right, Doctor Melvin, good to have you with us. I'm hoping you have CNN there so you can watch along with us.

MELVIN: Yes, I do.

O'BRIEN: This crash is so dramatic, it's hard to believe anybody could walk away. First thing's first. As you look at that, probably in excess of 200 miles an hour, right?

MELVIN: Well, his speed was. The crash wasn't. One of the big deals is that just because the car's going 200 doesn't mean he hits anything at 200 miles an hour.

O'BRIEN: OK, so what do you mean -- in other words, the relative speed of what he hits is important, right?

MELVIN: Right. The track doesn't move, but the car is moving. It's bouncing along the track. His actual crash speed into the track is not very much, because he didn't get very high in the air. But he is going along the track at a very high speed, like that. And when he takes off -- see, he's hitting -- it looks violent. It certainly is violent, but it's not 200 mile an hour crashing, that is, not the same as running into the wall at 200 miles an hour and stopping.

O'BRIEN: It's interesting, because, you know, those of us who remember seeing the Dale Earnhardt crash, which was obviously a fatal crash not nearly as dramatic as this one. The fact he sort of went airborne might have helped him perhaps because he slowed down as the car was tumbling.

MELVIN: Well, actually, the main thing is the car is tumbling. So there were a number of impacts, and as a result, each one was not as severe.

O'BRIEN: Interesting.

MELVIN: The car did slow down when it went up like that, because tremendous drag. These cars, at that speed, want to fly, and apparently the debris he ran over, put him upward enough it just took off like an airplane.

O'BRIEN: We have a couple stills. It's so hard, even in slow motion, to see what's going on there. I don't know if you can see that. As it kind of lifts off there, there's a little bit of an angle there. What you can't see are the wings that are on this, which are kind of the -- you would think of it as an upside down airplane wing, does just the opposite, pushes the air down as it goes across, right?

MELVIN: Right. When it tips up like that it now becomes -- the bottom of the car becomes a big air foil that makes it go up.

O'BRIEN: So suddenly, it is a wing, in the classic sense.

MELVIN: Yes.

O'BRIEN: Let's look at the next still. This one kind of hard to see what's going on there. Let's go...

MELVIN: There's a lot of debris. I wonder if it didn't hit somehow on the track, somewhere where we can't see it, and then started this.

O'BRIEN: All right, now, this right here is the car, OK.

MELVIN: Right.

O'BRIEN: And he said the whole event was just like it looked, to him -- I mean, to us. To him, I can only imagine what a driver is experiencing at this moment, except they know one thing -- they are really encased in a very, very extensive protection system, aren't they?

MELVIN: Right, the chassis or the tub, which is pretty much what remained afterwards, is enormously strong in an Indy car, and it is really their basis for protection. It keeps his space, therefore him. It doesn't crush in on him.

O'BRIEN: I got to ask quickly before we get away, can any of this technology, shouldn't it be applied for passenger vehicles? If Mario Andretti can walk away from this, shouldn't the car we drive to work be safer?

MELVIN: Well, we're hoping some day to do that. But there's a lot of things that has to be done on the research area to understand exactly why. If you build a car this strong, certainly, you could do pretty well. But you have to have all the rest of the things, the multipoint belts, the helmets, the head/neck restraints that drivers are wearing now, all of those things would have to be there for you to, in your passenger car, to protect, just like a race car. MELVIN: Yes, which would probably make it hard to put on makeup and make cell phone calls and drink coffee, so I guess we're not going to do that.

O'BRIEN: Right. But I'm convinced we will eventually learn enough from these race car crashes to provide an equivalent system in the passenger car some day. But it will take a lot of work. And it will make the cars heavier, probably, and more expensive.

John Melvin, I appreciate your time. He's an expert on the biomechanics of crash injury. Great insights. We appreciate you helping us to understand how a dramatic event like this can lead to somebody walking away and living to tell the story. You have a good day, sir.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com