Safety | December 11 2015

‘He can’t believe that he lived’

Garrison-4There are many reasons to purchase one vehicle or another. Style, driver and passenger comfort, mpg, torque and horsepower and tech features are of varying importance, depending on the individual. Of course, price is nearly always a consideration.

Safety is too, but it’s one you really hope you don’t need. It’s like car insurance.

You hope you never need it BUT if you do, it’s priceless.

As was the case for Todd Garrison of Cincinnati, when he bought a 2003 Jeep® Wrangler for his 16-year-old son Elijah, when he started driving.

“I am a 2014 JKU owner, my wife has a 2014 Cherokee. I insisted that [Elijah] have a Wrangler for his first vehicle (for the very reason I am typing this email) and he loves them as much as I do,” he wrote us.

“Elijah was driving to work Saturday morning [on Dec. 5] when his (passenger) side tire got off the road and he over corrected. When his driver side tire hit the grass, it struck a tree stump, causing his passenger side bumper to dig into the ground. That flipped him over, twisting to the passenger side rear bumper and exploded the hard top.Garrison-5

“His Wrangler then flipped again over on the passenger side and windshield portion of the roll cage where it went airborne. It landed on all four tires facing the opposite direction that he was traveling in someone’s driveway.

“As you can tell this was a very violent accident, but … he lived! Not only that, he walked away with just a mild concussion where he proceeded to call me himself to tell me what happened.

He got emotional at the scene, and I thought it was because he totaled his baby, an extremely clean 2003 TJ that we found 7 hours away. I was wrong. While his heart hurts for his Jeep, he was emotional because looking at it he can’t believe that he lived let alone walked away.”

All we can say is, WOW! We’re so glad that Elijah escaped relatively unhurt. Thanks Todd for sharing your story and the images, and thanks to Zimmer CDJR for connecting us with Todd.

If you have an interesting or notable story about you and your vehicle, let us know.