Flying Carwash...

This afternoon two guys were washing a car in the parking area of the Delfines towers on Ave Balboa. One of the guys went to move the vehicle, got crossed up between the gas and the brake, and drove the car (get this) through the wall and down five stories to the street below. Luckily, no one was walking by, and no other cars were going by on the street. The car hit the top of a wall, rolled over, and landed shiney side up. The airbag deployed and the car washer walked away with a couple of scrapes and bruises. The car was totaled. Photos follow... Ok, so you thought driving in Panama was tough. Here's something they forgot to teach you in driver's ed...

Ok, let me walk you through this. There were these two car wash guys, see. And they were washing a car right here, on the E5 parking level of the Delfines building.

They finished washing the first car, and one guy tells the other guy to move the car to make room for them to wash the second car. The first guy gets in the car, starts the motor, puts it in reverse, and guns it. He told me that he tried to hit the brake, but his foot slipped off and he hit the gas (hard). The car was a big 4x4, and it easily jumped the curb and went through the flimsey 4" block construction wall like it was not even there...

The guy who was driving was sitting in the driver's seat with the door closed, but without his seatbelt on (it was supposed to be a short trip...) Anyway, he went through the wall in reverse, the car fell about 40' feet or so, and landed back-first on top of the security wall you can see below. Then, it flipped over backward and landed on it's nose, before falling all the way over and landing on it's wheels.

The airbag deployed, but the driver still hit the steering wheel really hard. You can see the "U" shaped bruise across his chest. He also had a cut on the top of his head, a fat upper lip, and some back pain going down his right leg and lower back. I had him lay flat, sit still, and keep his head and neck straight until the ambulance got there. He was pretty banged up, and I'd bet there was at least a cracked rib in there somewhere, but all things considered the guy got off pretty easy. He would have been a lot worse off if he had just fallen or jumped from that height. The combination of the car crushing, airbag, and seat almost certainly saved his life.

The car was totally destroyed, or at least well hammered front and back.

I talked to the owners. They had just returned from an extended trip to France yesterday (welcome home...) Here's the owner taking a few things out of the back of the car.

Of course, anything like this draws a crowd (yeah, it came from right up there...)

The scary part is that this is a residential area, and the accident happened at about 4:00 PM on Sunday afternoon. Everyone was home, kids were playing, people were walking dogs, and this is a place were probably a few hundred people pass by walking every day. It's a miracle that no one on the ground was touched.