15 replies to this topic

[engin]

hi

do you remember german gp 76 or german 94

76 nikki lauda was trapped in his car unable to move it could have been the end there but three or four drivers decided to stop and not continue racing why ?

simply to pick up the poor lauda from his car and they did it nikki after that continued to take two titles 77,84

in german gp 94 jos was trapped in his car which caught fire and he was in the car trapped as well but the crew as i remember benneton and williams crew as well rushed to save him and they did a great job to put away the fire .

david purely tried as hard to help his team mate the american driver out of car though he didnt but it was brave and an act of human being leaving race to save a human i was great but unfortunatly the driver lost his life .

lots of examples of those brave peoples who managed to save their mates from death
they r definitly great heros and maybe saving a life is much more better than hundreds of titles and wins i guess its true.

in other way such driver never had a good luck like elio de angeles who was trapped in the car and died the ambulance car delayed for 10 minutes and there were many drivers like jones mansell and prost tried to help elio get out of the car but they never managed it the car was heavy and they were un equipped to do any thing and one of the most adored drivers died .

eio's crash was in practice session in france dont remember the track paul ricard i think.

another driver also died who was known for his huge determination patrick depallier died in germany hokenhiem and no one was there to save him .

saving lifes is a great thing those guys were heros after all though without wins or titles .

thanx .

[Huw Jenjin]

Mike Hailwood recieved a medal from the Queen for bravery, when he pulled Clay Regazzoni out of a BRM, Kyalami, 1973. T think another driver was involved too.

The drivers that pulled Niki Lauda out were Brett Lunger and Harald Ertl, and maybe some others.

Hunt pulled Ronnie Peterson out of his JPS Lotus at the Italian GP. I dont remember there being an Italian manslaughter inquiry against the doctors that treated him.

[Michael M]

Only want to remember that Patrick Depailler died not during a race event, but at testing. So unfortunately the German ONS guys who had been forerunners in terms of track rescue safety had not been present.

[Duane]

Merzario was also at the scene of Lauda's crash. In his biography, Lauda credits Art with succeeding in getting through the flames and undoing the belts so that he and the others could yank Lauda out of the car.

[Don Capps]

Both Mike Hailwood & former Para David Purley received the George Medal for heroism displayed during rescues during the 1973 season.

At the Nurburgring, Little Art's size was a blessing as he was able to scramble into the small space available to undo Niki's belts and then former Marine Brett Lunger and Harald Ertl managed to pull Niki free from the the wreckage.

What these guys did was truly brave in every sense of the word.

Another incident worthy of mention happened at Daytona during Speedweeks 1963. Marvin Panch was driving a Maserati coupe and crashed during practice. The car burst into flames. Panch was injured and was in danger of being even more seriously burned than he already was since he was trapped in the cockpit when the car inverted. Dwayne "Tiny" Lund literally picked up the the burning car - at the rear near the fuel tank no less! - and allowed others to pull Panch free.

With Panch out of the Daytona 500 due to his injuries, the ride in the Holman-Moody #21 Ford went to Lund who didn't have a ride for the race. Tiny won the race...

Later, Tiny was also presented the Silver Carnegie Medal for Lifesaving as a result of his role in the rescue of Panch. There are only a handful of these awards presented each year in the US. The vast majority are the Bronze Carnegie Medal and very, very few are the Silver Carnegie Medal, and the criteria for the Gold Carnegie Medal are so high that very few have ever been awarded.

In all the years I knew Tiny (from 1962 until his death in the mid-70s at Talladega, which devastated me to me honest), he never mentioned the medal. I was surprised to realize I was one of the few who even realized that he had earned it. Very typical of Tiny. And doubtless the same could be said of Hailwood and Purley.

The word "hero" gets so bantered around today as to be almost meaningless. These gentlemen displayed true heroism and placed their lives at risk in order to save others. They were willing to risk their lives for others. I have been in the military for over 30 years, saw my share of combat as a Lurp & a Ranger in Viet-Nam and what these drivers did qualifies as true heroism.

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Yr fthfl & hmbl srvnt,

Don Capps

Semper Gumbi: If this was easy, we’d have the solution already…

[buddyt]

Don your story of Tiny Lund bring back the memories. Marvin Panch asked Glenn and Lenard Wood, (the Wood brothers, owners of the # 21 Nascar Ford then as now) to let Tiny drive the car in the Daytona 500 from his hospital bed. Did you ever get to Tiny's fish camp in South Carolina? If the fish could talk, the stories they could tell would make good reading and get a few drivers in hot water. The day Tiny died was the same day Mark Donahue died in the Austria GP and B. J. Swanson was injured at Mid Ohio in a F 5000 race which 2 days later he died from. It was one of the blackest days in motorsports. I was on the back straight in Charlotte for the World 600 in 1963 when Fireball Roberts crashed his car and it bursted into flames, Ned Jarrett was also involved in the wreck and he helped pull Fireball from the car. Fireball died 2 months later from the burns. As a 11 year old at a race with his father this sight is foreever in my mind.

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"Speed cost money, how fast do you want to go?"

[Leif Snellman]

At the 1939 Belgian GP Dick Seaman
went sideways into a tree in a corner where the bus stop chicane is nowadays. The main fuel line between the tanks burst and the car begun to burn. Seaman had tanked 5 laps earlier and the Mercedes -Benz had a 420 litre tank. A quick calculation gives that well over 300 litres fuel was still onboard, a mixture of Metyl Alcohol, Nitro Benzol, Acetone and Ether.
A Belgian officer, who stood nearby, went into the inferno and managed with some assistance from others to remove the steering wheel and pull Seaman off. Remember than none had any fireproof clothes in those days. That Seaman died of his burns that same evening shouldn't take anything away from that heroic deed. Chris Nixon gives the name of the man as Lieutenant Hauman of the
1st Belgian Lancers.


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Leif Snellman
The Golden Era of Grand Prix Racing

[130R]

Those are incredible stories of courage and bravery! I agree wholeheartedly with Don that the word 'hero' is sadly used these days.

[RedFever]

Not only Arturo, Brett Lunger and Harald Ertl unfastened Niki belts and pulled him out. After spending several seconds uselessly trying to get the marshall to come over, they had to literally cross the track, take the estinguisher off the hands of the petrified marshall (can't remember which of them did), return to the car and use it as Arturo was getting into the flames to unfasten the seat belts.

It is also worth mentioning that Arturo and Niki were not buddies, Arturo had resentemnt mostly with Ferrari for dumping him, while Niki later got the drive that made him a legend. However, in the moment of need, none of this silly jealousies or personal issues mattered, and Arturo raced to rescue Niki without a second thought. It was a brave act those three performed that day. And I still remember them sitting near Niki lying on the floor, watching his bloody hands. He was asking about his face, and they lied to him, telling him it was not serious, it was going to be OK.

[Don Capps]

Guy Edwards later received the Queen's Gallantry Medal for his part in the Lauda rescue.

[Buford]

There was a fantastic fire rescue right in front of the pits at Sebring in the early 1960s. A driver ran into a totally enveloped in flames car and pulled the guy out.

[jarama]

Originally posted by Buford
There was a fantastic fire rescue right in front of the pits at Sebring in the early 1960s. A driver ran into a totally enveloped in flames car and pulled the guy out.

Buford,

there's a very good picture of this incident in the book "American Racing" of Tom Burnside.

In the picture the flames are enveloping the NART-entered Ferrari 250LM of Charlie Kolb, while to the right of the car the firemen are working frenetically.

[Buford]

Actually I am not sure if that is the same one. In this case a small car like an Alfa Sedan was totally on fire and the whole back was ripped off. A guy named Maggacimo or something like that from New York ran into the flames through the open rear of the car and pulled the guy out. I think the guy rescued was named something like Sanesi or something. This is all from memory.

[Don Capps]

It was Sebring 1964. The Alfa TZ was hit by the Bob Johnson/Dan Gurney Cobra, which was leading the GT class with only about an hour to go. The Alfa had no tail lights and was barely moving when the Cobra -- Johnson driving -- slammed into it almost right in front of the pits. Jocko Maggiacomo was the driver who dragged the trapped Consalvo Sanesi from the flaming wreckage and by doing so saved his life. I was under the impression that Jocko got a Carnegie Lifesaving Medal for his heroics, but I am not certain.

[AlesiUK]

Hunt pulled Ronnie Peterson out of his JPS Lotus at the Italian GP. I dont remember there being an Italian manslaughter inquiry against the doctors that treated him

it was Hunt and two others Depailler and Regazoni i think.And the manslaugter inquiry was against patrese i think.it is in the Monza 78 thread.

I would also mention a more recent event that has similarities to those mentioned.Oulton park in 1991,Paul warwick has a massive crash that would ultimately prove fatal.Richard Dean who had been running second to Warwick in the race saw he had crashed and stopped his car and ran to the wreckage to try and pull Paul from the burning car,unfoirtunately paul was no longer in the car as he had been thrown out in the accident.

[AlesiUK]

Im certain i read somewhere,probably this forum about a driver being pulled out of his burning car by Paulo Barrilla,wasnt he spectating at a race in Japan?big crash,dont remember the driver?scandanavian maybe?nielsen?nilsson?something like that.

anyway i remember reading that paulo jumped a fence and pulled this guy out,saving his life,it was not long before he came into f1,about 88?

the details are in a thread here somewhere,im sure that is where i read it.