I’m sure most of us have heard the story that a mother lifted up her car in a moment of superhuman strength because her child was under it… is this true? I looked at snopes and couldnt find the answer.
I cannot point to a link, but I’m sure it’s true. I’ve personnally seen a video of a rescuer lifting a crashed helicopter to free someone. A car should be easy.
Some cars have their engines at the rear. I expect this would make the fronts much easier to lift.
And we’re not really talking about lifting te whole d*mn thing, are we? We’re talking about raising one end and tilting it. If the centre of gravity is very near the balance point (ie the object is beneficially tilted) this becomes not too difficult. Think of moments.
FWIW, I’ve seen a similar (if not the same) video.
wow someone needs to post a link to that video!
I have seen the same video most likely. It was a big Hawiian guy named “Tiny” I think and it was a pretty awesome feat. I believe I saw the video on the syndicated show Maximum Exposure. I look for a link if I have time.
I don’t know about lifting cars but that adrenaline is wonderful stuff. One morning when I was about 65 and stiffened with arthritis I was walking my dog out on the desert.
As I watched her diving into bushes after lizards I happened to glance down by my left ankle and there lay a coiled upsidewinder.
Virtually instantly I was four feet to the side looking back at the snake. I don’t even remember jumping. The adrenaline took over and I moved faster than I am able to do when I consciously try.
So, under the right conditions and with the right car I think a person just might lift one of the ligher corners of a car just enough to pull someone out.
Going back to the OP, Leisa Hodgkinson was documented lifting a car off a child in England a couple of years back.
Back in the late 60’s when I was in High school, one of the other guys on the football team drove a Datsun pickup 1200 CC and 60 screaming horsepower.
Anyway my friend went camping out to the desert, and when making a turn an axle retainer for the rear axle broke and the axle slid out, stopping the truck in its tracks.
Anyway a CHP officer came by and told him he had to get the truck out of the intersection. So my buddy picked up the back of the truck, and had the officer push the tire back in so the truck could be moved.
When the truck got fixed we called bullshit and he picked it up again. So I tried it. I could get the tires up and off, but I could not hold it there because the bottom of the bumper hurt my hand too much.
In college I found out I could pick up either end of a Subaru 360. Not because I am strong, it is very light.
When I was 5 we moved into the house my mother is still in now. There was an old water heater in the basement that needed to be taken away but was still just sitting there disconnected. Somehow, my sister (who was 3 or 4 at the time) managed to knock it over on top of herself. The only thing that prevented her from being crushed was a pipe at the top that the water heater rested on when it fell, instead of laying flat. My mother picked the water heater up and moved it, scooped up my sister, and off to the hospital we went.
About a week later, as my sister lay upstairs resting with her broken collar bone (fortunately the only injury she got from the incident), four very large men hefted the water heater out of the basement. All of them remarked that it was amazing that my mother (not a large woman) was able to move the thing at all.
It’s not quite a car, but I think it’s close enough for what the OP was looking for.
Actually…I forgot something.
They do it all the time. You can catch it on the World’s Strongest Man competitions constantly being rerun on ESPN2.
well i can’t find the video, but this website has a bunch of other really cool helicopter videos.
/hijack
My mom did when she was 3 months pregnant with me. She had driven into a snowdrift. I don’t think we were in any actual danger but she had to be somewhere so she just kinda lifted it and pushed it back onto the road.
She says she thinks the strength came from being so ticked off about it, rather than adrenaline.
My tow truck driver has a plaque on his dash from a city in Maryland. He lifted a car off of a man and saved his life about 5 years ago. The guy isn’t very big, either… he’s probably about 55 or 60, very wiry.
I’ve always wanted my very own towtruck driver.
I heard a Datson driving football player story when I was in highschool (late '70s.) One of the larger players on the football team had a Datson (or some small Japanese car) and, as a prank, somebody slid a concrete parking block under it in front of the back wheels. I was not a witness but somebody told me that he kept backing up and running at the parking block over and over and not quite clearing it, getting madder and madder until he finally jumped out of the car, grabbed the back bumper and lifted it up and over.
Was that the two-cylinder, two-stoke Subaru? I’m surprised you couldn’t lift it over your head:)
Getting back to the topic, I heard that my next door neighbour’s son lifted a motircycle off his little brother when he was about 10-12. I think adrenaline was involved in both of my little friend-of-a-friend stories.
That description sure rings bells. Also, IIRC, it wasn’t a little helicopter like a Hughes or even a Jet Ranger. but something pretty hefty like an old Sikorsky.
That was my very first car!! It came to a bad end when I was rear-ended by a semi.
Years ago, when I was a kid, a football player at LSU witnessed a car wreck, and upon seeing that there were people still alive in the cars, he ripped the doors of both automobiles off. Presumably, there is a police report on the subject. I don’t know if this is a valid answer to your question. Except maybe to re-assure that adrenaline is a powerful substance.
I saw that clip, too. I seem to recall that it was an OH-6.