Super daughter lifts up car to save her Dad !!

A woman from Virginia has stepped in to save her father after he became pinned under his BMW.

I've heard and read plenty of stories like this where seemingly super-human strength has manifested in certain emergency situations - for some reason usually involving a person lifting up a car to save another.

Seconds later, she did what most would consider unthinkable, she moved a car weighing a ton and a half off her father's body. "I just lifted up kind of right here and just kind of threw it, shoved my body as hard as I could then I came back and dragged him out and started CPR," Lauren said. "It flashed like, I'm going to lose my dad. His eyes were open, he wasn't responding to me. I knew I had to get his heart beating again and I had to get him breathing." And in that moment, with those skills and strength, she was the only person keeping her Daddy alive.

link...........

IMO, in this particular situation a huge adrenalin boost seems to result in massive strength increase due to being involved in some traumatic event. Is there anyone who could shed some light on this particular phenomena? Is it a "recognised" phenomena?

reply to post by Sublimecraft


This is common phenomena happen everywhere,maybe to almost everyone, only different in stronger or weaker, but still more than he/she capable in daily life.

It is hard to explain by science cuz science usually think about power connected with muscle size etc. But in science it already explain that muscle move or react by electric charge.

In some older civilization, people already knew this, the secret lies in how can body charge more to muscle, and how to make body have more ability to charge,more electric in the body. It sure does not just because we eat, drink and breath. I would love to know when science community start to research in that way.
In some condition like accident, when someone can push the willing spirit more than usual, they can charge more electric, some even more than in muscular area.

Another way that this can happen is by another help. Mostly by what most people call guardian angel.Some of "guardian angels" are willing to boost energy or assist from the side of the one to help.

It is proven that this is possible, it is caused by all the muscle fibers being fired at a single time.
Modern humans don't use all their muscle fibers when they use their bodies, but if you look at chimpanzees, they can fire more muscle fibers at the same time, which is why they are so strong even when smaller than humans.

I believe, that the reason we can no longer fire all the muscle fibers at once it due to the evolution of our brain, and as it changed so did the way we used our bodies, minimizing energy loss to save calories ect. It was no longer necessary for modern humans to fire all of the fibers at once, so here we are.

I should add, if you could fire all the muscle fibers at once, you would be incredibly strong, some cases exist where people can fire more muscle fibers than a normal human is capable of.

Cheers to both maung & KingAtlas for your responses - great stuff.

Still, it mystifies me when I read and hear about it...........

reply to post by Sublimecraft

I'm not impressed by the feat of strength, as I think there's some embellishment.

What I'm impressed with is she knew CPR and has a physics degree.

Wonder if physics at work here.. like was the car on 4 weeks equally, or not angled in anyway. I "lifted" a car when one of the wheel was in ditch because the all 4 wheels were not carrying the same weight, this could have been the case, also maybe there was some sort of leverage that was taking some of the cars weight.

However, i do think its possible to summon superhuman strength since humans are still limited in our understanding of the world and the laws.

reply to post by Sublimecraft


Sorry I can't shed any light on this 'phenomena', but I have had something a little similar happen, although it wasnt a car. An older man, fell down beside me, he was a HUGE huge man (tall and very overweight), and Im only tiny and not very tall. To this day, I don't know how I picked him up, but I did, there was no one around to help me, no phone nearby, and if I had left him to go for help, he would have suffocated. At the time, I just remember thinking I have to get him off the floor....but for ages afterwards, I had to keep asking myself if i'd really done it.

I dont know what sort of adrenalin drive that makes us do these things, but ther eis certainly something that happens in certain situations!

I had an experience when I was a kid similar to this girl and involved stopping a car from crushing my legs. I was helping my mum reverse her car into a small space and stupidly I was standing in between her and the parked car, well she was edging slowly backwards and as she was doing this her foot slipped from the clutch from cramp and the car lurched backwards towards me at considerable momentum.
Now the car was only about a foot away from me when her foot slipped but I managed to find incredible strength to stop this car from within an inch of crushing my legs that really shouldn't have been possible considering I was skinny tall 14 yo with very little actual strength.

Nice story. Thanks for posting.

For some reason I actually want to believe in this and there are some very well documented cases and personal experiences even here on ATS.

My own experience is different. About 20 years a co-worker was messing around on a 3 wheel forklift. He toppled it over and the safety bar landed directly on his chest pinning him underneath. For 15 minutes solid we tried to lift it off him eventually needing 8 people to do so.

I wish so much that I could of had one of those "golden" moments to save my friend and housemate.

Does it just happen to special people or is it just their time to shine??

RIP Ger.

reply to post by Irish Matador


Sorry to hear of the loss of your friend, that's a truly sad story.

From my experience it was just an instant reaction I just knew I had to do it or I was going to be crushed.

reply to post by mclarenmp4


Nice story and you were very lucky!! That could of done some serious damage.

Are instances like this destiny, luck or just momentary flashes of our true physcial potential??

Great she saved her dad and all, but why do people say it's super human? Many humans can lift a car.

Humans are awesome...

I too have had a similar experience.

I remember the moment I was born I quickly realized i couldn't breathe and there was a strange man holding me upside down whilst hitting my back. I quickly assumed this back hitting was causing me not to be able to breathe. With the thought of saving my own life I hit the man in the face and he fell to the ground because even though I was just born I felt danger and all my muscle fibers fired at once giving me the strength to injure the very doctor who had delivered me into this world.

Btw the doctor dropped me on my head, which was the first of many head to ground incidents throughout my early childhood and could possibly explain why i'd make such a post as this =)

Double post due to above stated brain injuries.

Originally posted by TKDRL
Great she saved her dad and all, but why do people say it's super human? Many humans can lift a car.

Those cars are not 1.5 tons of BMW, but rather a Fiat punto or Lada without a motor or seats, weighing about 400 kg. Still impressive but...

This are the stories I like to read about. If people can draw on their inner strength they can do just about anything. I know this is no way the same thing but giving birth to my children I used my inner strength to go through it. I never knew I had it in me until afterwards.

..i lost my left leg in 07 when a drunk hit me on my chopper.

not knowing at the time that my leg was missing..with a broken arm i took off my helmet and stood up, as to walk towards my wrecked bike..

yes, i fell to the floor...i felt no pain. im guessing this was due to adrenaline.

I think people just underestimate what we can do in the moment of extreme stress. I've had a few experiences which make me believe that we can do unbelievable things in these extreme circumstances.
My other experience was where time slowed down in order for me to navigate through a potentially fatal situation. My friend who was with me at the time couldn't believe what just happened as it was a blur for him but for me time literally slowed down.
That experience I had where time slowed down was familiar to me but in a different context. It was the same feeling when I had out of body experiences.
So I think having a semi OOBE in the car allowed me to perceive time more slowly which pretty much saved me and my friends life.

reply to post by Sublimecraft


This seems actually to have to do with the body's capacity to utilize EVERY muscle fibre in extreme situations rather than the common fibres used in general everyday use.

In fact a great example is in the TV Show Superhumans, Season 1, episode 1, a Mr. Dennis Rogers from Houston, Texas. His body does exactly this ALL THE TIME and it enables him to snap wrenches and roll frying pans up with little effort.

i wonder if humans can one day fully make use of this superpower ability.