Man bends car door to save man from burning car.

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

A man saved a driver from a burning car by bending the door with his bare hands, say police, describing his feat of “superhuman strength”.

Bob Renning, 52, pulled up on a freeway in Minnesota to help another vehicle that was filling with smoke.

Police officer Zachary Hill was first to the scene and full of praise for Mr Renning’s “extraordinary” heroics.

“He did an extraordinary deed, bending a locked car door in half, of a burning car, to extricate a trapped person,” said Hill.

BBC link.

Johannes couldn’t get the door open after the locks and power windows failed. Realizing he had to work fast, Renning gripped the top of the door frame with his fingertips, braced his foot against the door — and pulled. The door then bent in half and the glass shattered, the State Patrol said.

Star Tribune link.

2

From the Star Tribune link.

Yetthe pictureonly shows the upper door frame bent. The door does not look like it was bent in half. The near victim was pulled through the window opening.

Still freaking impressive.

3

Yeah, that’s pretty extraordinary but it isn’t “bending the door in half”. I mean, I sure couldn’t have done it. I’m not sure I could have done it with a crowbar even.

4

Yes, I noticed that. That is why I linked StarTibune article also.

But mighty impressive. I remember earlier threads here about “parent lifting car to save a kid” hoax.

5

It may be unusual for a human, but it’s fairly common for bears.

6

Then we need to have bears stationed at intervals along roads (perhaps one at each call box) to rescue occupants from the death-trap vehicles that our automotive industry had decided to foist upon us all.

Need to get from Point A to Point B? Fine. Walk or bike or buy one of our Latest Model Automotive Death Trap Vehicles!

7

A friend at work who used to work at an auto plant pointed out that in reality, that portion of the car door isnt so terribly strong. Its just 2 sheets of sheet metal welded together without much structural support so its quite easy really to bend it out if you can get your fingers in for a good grip. As was pointed out above, bears do it all the time.

Luckily most car thieves havent figured it out yet.

8

“Death-trap vehicles”? You mean the miracles of engineering that can whack into each other or guard rails at highway speeds and more often than not disgorge living passengers?

I’d kind of like to hear more about your death-trap vehicles and why you think that the billions of dollars in engineering effort that has gone into making vehicles safer has all gone for naught.

9

That’s it…now you’re in charge of making sure the bears mate to fill in the numbers.

10

I presume Senegoid was referring to the decision to value security over safety, such that some car doors and windows are impossible to open from inside once the vehicle is locked even when it’s working perfectly, let alone when the electrical system is inoperable. (This came up in the thread about children dying in hot parked cars – one example was of a girl who had been left to nap in a car locked by her brother.)

11

Maybe his secret identity is that he’s a bear?

12

Whether it’s relevant or not, I don’t know, but the metal was also under heat at the time.

13

Was there nanothermite?

14

Yes, the thing then is getting that grip in the first place, if you can only squeeze your fingertips in between the frame and the door it must take fingers like steel.

15

The title of the thread is:

Man bends car door to save man from burning car.

16

While the story was unnecessarily overblown, I still give the guy a lot of credit. I couldn’t have done it on a good day and he saved a life.

17

Did the man claim that or did the media make it up?

Do you need two guesses?