A 75-year old Cleveland man ended up trapped in his 2006 Cadillac XLR for 14 hours last month, according to a story reported by the Detroit Free Press. The owner of the car, Peter Pyros, hopped into his roadster to back out onto his driveway, but he quickly learned that the battery was dead. He was “trapped” because the doors use an electric button to activate the door latch to open the door. Since the battery was dead, the buttons did nothing.
Now, GM planned for an eventuality like this by placing a manual door release handle on the ground next to the seat. It’s marked with a red diagram of the driver-side door opening. There’s also a section about it in the owner’s manual. The only problem here, was that Pyros says he didn’t know the release was there, and he didn’t have his owner’s manual in the car. Because of this, Pyros may not have made it out alive if not for a neighbor coming to his rescue.
“I came to the conclusion that I was going to die … I was at peace with it. I asked God to help me twice, then I said, ‘OK, God if this is the way I’m supposed to die, I will die,'” Pyros said to reporters.
There’s every chance he could have died in the car, too. Temperatures in Cleveland hit 77 degrees the day he was in the car, and he said it was unbearably hot and difficult to breathe after only 30 minutes sealed inside. Pyros reportedly tried yelling, pounding on and even trying to break the car’s windows without success. At one point, Pyros wrote a note to his nephew explaining what happened if he ended up dying. What eventually saved him was a curious neighbor who came to investigate after he noticed his garage door was still open late at night. His neighbor called the police after he found him in the car, and emergency personnel actually ended up charging his car’s battery up enough to get the electric door release to work.
Of course, after everything settled down, there are now lawyers involved. They’re going after GM, with an argument accusing the automaker of not making the emergency latch more obvious both in the car and in the owner’s manual.
Lawyers with $ signs in their eyes. “Never let a good crisis go to waste.”
So glad the man made it out of the car alive and survived the cops showing up. Miracle!
“….and survived the cops showing up….”
“Step out of the car. STEP OUT OF THE CAR!!!!”
“Your honor, we had to shoot him through the glass for refusing to obey….we were in fear for our lives.”
I got trapped inside a top-down Corvette convertible on a showroom floor. After 3 different people coming to help me, they figured out that the battery was dead and brought a jumper out to pop the door latch.
That there told me to stay the hell out of cars what don’t belong to me, and to make sure to keep doors manual operating.
Lets all chipin a $20 spot and buy Hitlery & Bill, Obimbo and his tranny as well as the Bushes the same type Cadillac XLR with a bad battery and then cross our fingers hoping for this to trap them!
I’d chip in for a lifetime pass for Malaysian Airlines for the four of them. I hear that the Bermuda Triangle tour is beautiful this time of year…..
He never thought about kicking a window out ?
Jeeze the pussification of men IS complete
This stooge sat there for how fking long ?
Yeah , fken stop the world I officially want off
There is no gravity the earth sucks !
Another person that didn’t think that he needed to read the owners manual!
“Oh, I know all that crap, I’ve been driving for 65 years, I don’t need to read that stupid manual. I’m got more important things to do like watching TV and taking my Geritol.”
Yeah, right,,,,,,,,,,.
So you simply just passively sat there for fourteen hours, huh? Too bad it wasn’t in west Texas or somewhere similar. Betcha you wish you’d have read the manual NOW, huh dummy?
I guess that once he get his car fixed, he’ll be back out on the road driving among us, and I bet that he STILL won’t actually read the manual.
I spent 15 years wrenching at primarily GM dealerships back in the day. I hated answering questions from people that were too lazy to read the manual.
I run to this all day long in my job. People call me for help because they refuse to RTFM! I ask them if they even have the manual and the say no. I ask them how did you think you were going to start up that machine with no computer and no manuals? They say that’s why I’m calling you! The stupid, it burns!