Car Chest Collision

After I removed the interior from the Lumina the next step was to jack it up and drain the fluids. I needed to remove the gas from the tank, and then remove the tank. the engine oil, transmission oil and engine coolant all had to be drained before I could even think about taking out the Engine and cutting the car in half.

I decided it would be a good idea to test myself before I embarked on this step (the step where I jack up the car and get under it). I said to myself "if I am going to do this, I should be able to change the oil on my Elantra with no problem. And that is what I set out to do. The text that follows is from an email to my friend explaining what had happened.

so, i was changing the oil on my elantra (the driving around car) and i had it jacked up at the center point in the front....i had just gotten under the car and gotten settled...i put my socket wrench to the oil plug and found it to be stiff...so i gave it a harder push....before i had time to react i was trapped, the car fell on me and landed on my lower ribcage and diaphragm. at first, panic took me...it hurt and the pressure of the car on me wasn't going away. i started to hyperventilate...all of this took about 5 seconds....then i started to think...i realized what happened and what situation i was in. i tried to push the car up and slide out...no dice...i tried to calm my breathing but i still wasn't getting enough air, i was suffocating from the weight...i knew my cell phone was under there on my tool kit...i fumbled and reached for it and dialed my friend john (i knew he was inside and about 10 minutes before i told him i would call him if the car fell on me and i needed help) but he didn't answer, the ringing took forever....then i called my friend adam and he didn't answer either....panic started to take me again...i asked god to save me...i didn't want to die...and then i screamed out for help...i yelled and yelled....when i didn't hear anything i went to the cell phone again....this time i got john....i hurriedly explained my issue with a yelling sense of urgency in my voice...he asked if i was joking......i explained i was quite serious. but just as i hung up with john, a man showed up to help...i thanked him and god both....he had heard me yelling and followed my voice...he didn't know how to use a jack and i had to explain it to him...i was yelling at him and frustrated that he didn't just know what to do...i think he understood though that it was only because of the car pressing down on my chest....after that i was just waiting for him to lower the jack enough to get it under the car...and then jack it up....the very second he started to turn it and relieve the pressure i felt the weight coming off.

from start to finish i was under there about five minutes.

I never went to the hospital. I had some bruising and soreness for a couple of weeks. All in all I would say that I am both very stupid and very lucky. This was an experience for me that I will never forget. I learned an important lesson in jack safety that day and I truly believe that I almost lost my life. The car impacted my body at the diaphragm...a couple of inches higher and I would probably have had broken ribs and internal bleeding. The V-Shaped bruise pattern came from an odd shaped piece of metal under the car where it was resting on my body.

Less than a week later I successfully changed the Oil on the Elantra using two jack stands and leaving the jack under there to be safe. It seemed easy the second time.

When I finally jacked up The Lumina it was a serious process, but I eventually got it up and very steady on four jack stands and 3 cinder blocks. When I pushed on it, it was like pushing on a brick wall. I felt safe getting under it.

The Gutting

After the car was back to its staging area, there was only one thing to do. Gut the car. Everything had to be removed. This seemed straightforward enough at first. but I quickly realized that removing the interior of the car as well as the engine, gas tank and fuel lines was going to take me quite some time. I decided to just do what I knew that I could do....remove the interior of the car.

I started to work, pulling out the seats uppolstry. Out came the dashboard and the door pannels. The back seat came out. Everything inside the car took some sort of brute force to pull out of the car. Dozens of screws and bolts had to be loosened. I had to use a pneumatic chisel to get the front seat out as one bolt was stripped and refused to come off.

The Dashboard was particularly hard to remove. There must have been a dozen bolts holding it on in weird, hidden, out of the way places that were hard to get to with a socket wrench. Persiverence was the name of the game...and once the dash was free, I discovered that it was still connected with wires. I cut them because I was getting impatient.

Once I had a most of the interior of the car out and into my studio, I began looking at the various pieces and trying to see what they could potentially be.