WE HAVE LIFT OFF!
When people tap into their superpowers
On Saturday, 21 September 2019, Zac Clark, 16, and his mother Laura were in their front yard in Butler, Ohio, working on the flower beds when they heard a female neighbour call for help. They both ran to the house, where they saw the woman’s husband pinned underneath their Volkswagen Passat. “I guess the jack broke or slipped,” said Zac, “and the car fell on top of him from the waist up.” Zac positioned himself at the front of the car, near the hood, and managed to lift it long enough for Laura and the neighbour’s wife to pull the unnamed 39-year-old from underneath. “He had a couple of cracked ribs and his face was messed up pretty bad, but the doctors told him if I wasn’t there then he’d be dead,” said Zac. “I just thank God for putting me in the position and giving me the strength to do that.” [CNN] 26 Sept 2019.
• In situations of extreme danger, the body releases adrenaline, leading to increased blood flow, a heightened pulse rate, extra reserves of determination and increased physical performance – or so it was believed until recently. A series of studies – published in the journal Cell Matabolism – indicate the “adrenaline rush” is a medical myth. What triggers the bodily changes is a hormone called osteocalcin produced by the bones. This helps explain why younger humans, with healthier bones, have a more acute stress response. D.Telegraph, 13 Sept 2019.
• On 24 February 2002, Richard Stilwell was under his Dodge Ram van in Bow, New Hampshire, fixing the transmission when it popped out of park gear. The five-ton vehicle fell on him, pinning his whole body underneath. He screamed to his wife inside the house for help. Initially, she jumped in the van, started it up and tried to move it off his body, but this only made the situation worse, so she got out and lifted the van off her
husband with her bare hands. Donna Stilwell was 5ft 2in (157cm) tall and weighed 115lb (52kg). “She has wrist problems and has a hard time moving a coffee table,” said her husband. “She can’t even shovel for four minutes.” He sustained a broken arm and internal bruising, but it could have been a lot worse if not for his wife’s timely intervention. Boston Metro, 1-3 Mar 2002.
• On 5 November 2006, Royal Marine Mark Farr, 29, was in Gereshk – in the Sangin Valley in southern Afghanistan – driving a two-ton Pinzgauer truck when a mortar bomb exploded nearby, flipping the truck into a water-filled ditch, trapping his legs and pinning him under 3ft (90cm) of water.
He was seconds from drowning when Colour Sergeant Carl ‘Tatts’ Tatton, 38, braved Taliban mortar fire to lift the vehicle off his comrade, although it was 13 times his body weight. Another soldier pulled Marine Farr to safety. D.Mail, D.Express, Metro, 4 Oct 2007.
• Nick Harris somehow found the strength to lift a car off six-year-old Ashlyn Hough in Ottawa, Kansas, in December 2009. He was dropping off his eight-year-old daughter at school when he saw a driver backing her car out of a driveway and over the child. “I didn’t even think,” he said. “I ran over there as fast as I could, grabbed the rear end of the car and lifted and pushed as hard as I could to get the tyre off the child.”
Harris, 32 – 5ft 7in (170cm) and 185lb (84kg) – said he didn’t know how he managed to lift the Mercury sedan off the child. He said he tried later that day to lift other cars and couldn’t. “But somehow, adrenaline, hand of God, whatever you want to call it, I don’t know how I did it,” he said. Kristen Hough said her daughter was released from the hospital that afternoon with a concussion and some scrapes. “[Nick Harris] truly is a superhero in the family’s eyes,” she said. [AP] 18 Dec 2009.
• Ed Wells, 53, was trapped for 40 minutes when a 25ft (7.6m) tree fell on him in his garden in May Hill, Gloucestershire. His wife Melanie managed to slide the trunk above his chest just enough so he could breathe, before sons Jack (19) and Toby (17) arrived to help paramedic Colin Apps manhandle it clear. “I don’t know how my mum shifted it on her own,” said Jack. “It was too heavy for us before we sawed off branches – and even then it was a struggle.” Mr Wells was airlifted to hospital with a fractured vertebra. D.Mirror, 24 Dec 2009.
• On 28 July 2012, Alec Kornacki was in the family garage in Glen Allen, Virginia, working on a BMW 525i when the jack slipped and the 1.5ton car fell on top of him. His daughter Lauren, 22, found him pinned to the ground and unresponsive. “She proceeded to lift up the car, pull him out and then give him CPR,” said her sister Kristen. (Fortuitously, she had worked as a lifeguard.) Mr Kornacki was treated at the Virginia Commonwealth University Medical Center. He had several broken ribs, some numbness and other fractures, but suffered no permanent damage. WWBT NBC12, 31 July; [CNN] 1 Aug 2012. •
In April 2013, a driver in his 20s was flung from his car and pinned under the engine after it hit a lamppost and wall at 1.30am in Coseley, West
Midlands. Dale Crowley – 5ft 6in (1.7m) and 154lb (70kg) – rushed out to help in his pyjamas, lifted the Peugeot to free the driver and even shoved the one-ton vehicle 3ft (90cm) out of the way. The driver was hospitalised with serious injuries. Sun, 17 April 2013.
Bob Renning, 52, saved a driver from a burning SUV on a freeway in Minnesota by bending the door with his bare hands. State Trooper Zachary Hill said he had shown “superhuman strength”, adding: “I don’t think I could take a crowbar and fold the door like he did.” Renning, a member of the US National Guard, told the Minneapolis Star Tribune he was not sure how he bent the door open far enough to shatter the window glass. He had sprinted towards the vehicle as he saw flames and smoke “rolling around” inside. His girlfriend called 911. After he realised the vehicle was locked and the windows would not work, he gripped the top of the doorframe with his fingers, braced his foot against the door and pulled.
The driver, Michael Johannes, suffered minor smoke inhalation and light cuts from being pulled through the shattered window. “Thirty seconds later and I would have been done,” he said. BBC News, 2 July; D.Express, 4 July 2014.
On 30 July 2017, Stephen Parker was working on a Toyota Prius in his backyard in Sugar City, Utah, with his sons JT (8) and Mason (17). He jacked up the car and slid underneath to take the axles off. One came off easily, but the other one was stubborn. He went to adjust the axle and move the jack, but the car fell on him. Mason had gone into the house minutes earlier after cutting his hand so it was left to the eight-year-old to save the day.
“I yelled to JT on the other side of the car, ‘Jack it up quick!’,” said Mr Parker. “I couldn’t move at all. I was totally trapped, and then I passed out. It was all in his hands and I thought, ‘This is it. There’s no way he can jack up this car because it took my 17-year-old son and I both to jack it up the first time.” JT, who weighed a mere 50lb (23kg), adjusted the jack and jumped up and down on the handle for 15 minutes as the car slowly rose off his father. He then ran in to get Mason, who called 911. Mr Parker was flown to hospital by helicopter in critical condition. He had 13 broken ribs but no internal organs were damaged – and two days later, he was well enough to go home. ksl.com (Salt Lake City, UT), 3 Mar 2017.
For more on feats of superhuman strength in an emergency, see FT45:25, 173:74, 181:13, 203:8.