Agree.
I find it extremely doubtful that if the accident had been reported promptly and Farrar had reached the scene as fast as he claimed he could have, that rescue was possible.
Other issues of culpability and honesty remain.
Not meaning any disrespect to the victim, and without knowing anything about the rescuer that is not in this thread, I thought I would say that many things manufactured during that era were over engineered and built to last (as American business at that time had a time horizon that looked beyond the next quarterly earnings report) and function well. Obviously a vehicle with at least one window lowered is not airtight, but I bet Mr. Kennedy could afford a vehicle with very low road noise (which is partially contributed to with airtight door seals). I believe it is possible for a high end vehicle from that time frame (with all of the windows raised tightly) to maintain a breathable air bubble in the passenger compartment for quite some time. Not knowing the roll and yaw of the vehicle immediately after going into the water, it would be impossible to know if there was any air bubble at all, or how long it could possibly last. But it is quite possible there was an air bubble initially (as air remains inside an inverted drinking glass when it is submerged in liquid). Below is a link to a much lower cost automobile that seems to have some airtight properties.
My speculation is that it didn’t matter anyway; the poor woman was in no condition to take advantage of an air bubble if one did exist. It is my further opinion that the senator behaved in a shameful, selfish, and privileged manner that disgusts me. (Not that I remember them from the time they were alive—but I do respect the memory of both of his brothers.) It may very well be that Mr. Kennedy had no way of saving the woman’s life – what seems clear to me is that he was more interested in avoiding blame and protecting his career than he was in getting the help that might have proven successful in saving her.
Link to somewhat water tight automobile:
[quote=“Temporary_Name, post:22, topic:812103”]
Not meaning any disrespect to the victim, and without knowing anything about the rescuer that is not in this thread, I thought I would say that many things manufactured during that era were over engineered and built to last (as American business at that time had a time horizon that looked beyond the next quarterly earnings report) and function well. Obviously a vehicle with at least one window lowered is not airtight, but I bet Mr. Kennedy could afford a vehicle with very low road noise (which is partially contributed to with airtight door seals). I believe it is possible for a high end vehicle from that time frame (with all of the windows raised tightly) to maintain a breathable air bubble in the passenger compartment for quite some time. Not knowing the roll and yaw of the vehicle immediately after going into the water, it would be impossible to know if there was any air bubble at all, or how long it could possibly last. But it is quite possible there was an air bubble initially (as air remains inside an inverted drinking glass when it is submerged in liquid). Below is a link to a much lower cost automobile that seems to have some airtight properties.
[snip]
Link to somewhat water tight automobile:
[/QUOTE]Sen. Kennedy was driving a 1967 four-door Oldsmobile Delmont 88. Your impression of the build quality of 1960’s American sedans like that is very different than mine. The only reason the Volkswagen ad worked was because it relied on American car buyers to understand that any American car would have sunk like a rock under the same circumstances.
I realize I’m slagging beloved American cars from the 1960s but my father may very well have helped build that car when he worked in a GM assembly plant. His stories about the plant did not instill any faith in their quality. Cars from the 60’s were easy to fix, which was great because they needed fixing all the time.
But both front windows wer open! Hardly ‘airtight’.
Yes, thanks to National Lampoon, we all know if Ted Kennedy had driven a Volkswagen he’d have been president.
Another fun bit from NL’s photo funnies… 1976…
Ted: “I am not running for president?”
Reporter: “What if the convention drafts you?”
Ted: “I’ll drive off that bridge when I come to it…”
There was some suggestion that in fine Kennedy / presidential tradition, young women drunk at a party of politicos were doing more than drinking. Kennedy claims he was not driving drunk.
However - I doubt a bubble would have remained very long. From what I remember of cars of that era, the pedal openings typically were nowhere near air-tight… not to mention wiring access holes, etc. if the car were inverted fairly flat, all the air except maybe an inch or two would have drained out the pedal holes.
Kennedy was diagnosed (allegedly) with a concussion. I agree, in those days seatbelts, if present, were decoration. Even up until people started getting tickets for them, the common reaction to putting on a seatbelt was “what, are you afraid of my driving?” The only saving grace would be that intoxicated people often survive crashes better - less tensing up, more flopping, seems to help protect against some injuries - but probably not head trauma. If Kennedy had a concussion, what about Mary Jo’s possible head injuries? A vehicle flopping over then falling several feet onto its roof is not an ideal situation to survive, even if the forward speed was not too fast. While I do fault Kennedy for not calling the authorities right away, I have seen evidence that people under stress can do stupid things and I’m sure a concussion wouldn’t help the situation.
I must say that if I ever heard someone say “what, are you afraid of my driving?” I don’t remember it. I do remember some people say that they didn’t care if you didn’t wear your seat belt in their car because they were afraid of being pinned underwater. The law has changed that behavior but not the opinion: there’s still a lot of people who will grouse about deaths in lakes while still dutifully putting on their seat belt.
It was a 1967 Olds Delta 88. Seat belts weren’t standard equipment in them until 1968. Before that, they were available as a factory installed option, if you ordered the car that way. It’s a fair guess that the car didn’t have any. Certainly, hardly anyone used them even if they were present, back then.
My two older brothers (and a friend of theirs) are alive because they decided on a whim to dig the seat belts out of the seat cushions of a mid-60’s AMC Rambler before racing on a country road and rolling it a couple of times.
Even after that, no one in the family wore their seat belts much.
Don’t forget being trapped by fire besides the drowning excuse. And who can forget, “I want to be thrown free of the car in case of an accident.”
A large number of human’s have mush for brains. No wonder zombies starve a lot;)
There was some comedian years ago who had a whole routine about how his grandpa wouldn’t wear a seatbelt. "He says, ‘if I’m in an accident, I want to be thrown clear.’ Maybe instead of seatbelt alarms, cars should have a feature where the seat back whacks your head against the windshield a few times to show you how hard it is. Funny, in an airplane where you’re travelling 600mph and a seatbelt won’t make a bit of difference, everyone wears a seatbelt. Nobody wants to be ‘thrown clear’. "
But then, Kennedy was driver and Mary Jo was a passenger. In those days in high speed crashes, the risk was the steering wheel breaks off and the steering column impales the driver. However, this was apparently a fairly low speed accident so maybe the driver - Kennedy - had the advantage of a bit of restraint thanks to the steering wheel reducing how much he flew around during the inversion maneuver, while his passenger probably had a bit more room to bounce around, lose consciousness and be severely injured.
What does puzzle me is how someone who can swim a 500-foot channel can’t dive down a few feet to retrieve a body that was apparently still in a car, through an open window, even with multiple attempts. This makes me think alcohol probably helped with the state of confusion, for him and for his two helpers unless somehow she was jammed in.
I’ve always thought it was a wonder Kennedy made it out alive. You have to assume that at going into water at night, and (probably) having had a bit to drink, and with the car apparently having turned over, would be incredibly disorienting. But somehow he made it out.
Kennedy was young (at that time) and in pretty good shape. (The whole Kennedy clan was known for their athleticism – remember the comparisons between his brother John and predecessor Eisenhower?). Also, he was driving rather than her. So he probably was more alert, and possibly had a lower BAC than her.
Here you go: 西北夹诩广告传媒有限公司
And see the last minute or so here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=igtTkeUo05U
Which is kind of misleading; IIRC from the movie version of Catch-22, a Volkswagen will float with a significant nose-up tilt because of the weight of the rear engine.
But I still like to use the line “I’ll drive off that bridge when I come to it…”