This is how the Daily Telegraph described this failed leap into the history books:
A SMALL car packed with seven young people plunged into Sydney Harbour yesterday.
In what police labelled a remarkable escape, only one of the vehicle's occupants was injured.
The young male, who was travelling in the boot compartment of the blue Toyota Corolla hatchback, was taken by ambulance to Royal Prince Alfred Hospital with cuts to the head.
The driver of the vehicle fled the scene while all the remaining occupants were unhurt.
The vehicle had been travelling east on Byrne Rd when the driver lost control about 2.10am, careering across Lysaght Park and down a 5m drop on to rocks at the water's edge of Five Dock Bay.
Here is the spot in question. If that's a "5m drop", then the Telegraph needs to start handing out new tape measures to its reporters, starting with Michael Mapstone. That's not even a 5 foot drop. 3 feet, or 1 metre, might be more like it.
The story tells us that the driver was pissed. The more I read of this prang, it sounds like the reporter was drunker than the driver.
You can just see some faint skid marks where the car went across the footpath.
The car barked this tree as it went past. You can see some faint skidmarks on the grass as well.
Here's where the car went off the road.
And this is the tortuously steep and winding road that the driver failed to negotiate.
Epic fail.
I suspect one of the passengers might have yanked on the handbrake. I once had an in-car punchup with a drunken Chook when he continually tried to do that to me. He was ably assisted by another drunken fellow, Nick the ex-copper.
Post script.
Here is the photo from the Telegraph. Does that look like a five metre drop to you? The car is only 2/3 of the way over the edge, and on an angle. Assuming this is a Toyota Seca, or something similar, the specs tell me that it is 4.1 metres long.
Hmmmm. A car that is 4 metres long, with 1/3 of it left above the bank. At most, that makes the drop 2.6 metres, but you then have to account for the angle. I can't do the bloody maths anymore, but it's probably under 2 metres.
Five metres, my arse!
4 comments:
That spot was all a ruined industrial area in the early 1960's (Lysaghts the steel foundry was still operating over in 'Chiswick' but whatever was in 'Lysaght Park' had already been abandoned). Ramps and wharves over deep water where I would test giant bungers - if you let the wick burn down to the paper then drop them in the deep water they'd go off like depth charges.
Campbell Park was a marshy wasteland where a guy from Margaret St used to train trot horses for Harold Park. You can still see the running circuit he carved out in satellite photos. The circus would stop there and put up a big Top. I remember going to sleep in Margaret St to the sound of elephants, lions, and those massive old chugging generators they used to use.
I never knew that. I thought Lysaghts was named after a rich family that donated the land, or something along those lines. A mate of mine worked for Lysaghts before they were absorbed by BHP Steel.
As for the circus - it looks like we have plenty of potential clowns living in the area!
Nice piece of 'vestigations, BOAB. It's a constant source of frustration to me that journos can't count - or measure.
It's between 1.6-1.8 metres.
MarkL
Canberra
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