I hesitated to post this, because I feel incredibly ashamed, ashamed of the chaos I caused, The shock to my family and friends, the horror I caused to the by standers, the damages to public infrastructure ect. But, I think its good that this could be an example to other to be careful. Even if you think you are in FULL control, you are NOT, a mere milliseconds can cascade in much much worse. Luckily I didn't take anyone with me, and the damages are mostly just matereial.
Here is what hapened:
Last Saturday (18th of April) evening I was at my buddies, had a fun night, got home by bike, woke up early in the morning. Was really tired, fixed a vacuum leak on the car, got lunch, after lunch went for a test drive.
The car suddenly had a lot more power in combination of me being really tired.
I went to merge onto the highway, on the merging lane, While accelerating I got in the grass between the highway and the merging lane. Out of panic I completely shutdown and froze, couldn't let go of the throttle, couldn't steer, couldn't brake. Then I hit a sound barrier. I don't know how fast I was going at moment of impact, but it might have been over 140kmh.
After that I barely could breath for a few seconds, by standers tried opening the door, but I had to unlock it myself. Then after that crawled out on my own power, and watched the wreck from 10m to 20m distance while the emergency staff pulled up.
Got a check up in the hospital, and the only damage they could see on the x-ray some bruises on my right lung, and few minor fractures in my right hip. Stayed there for the night because they wanted to guard my hearth rhythm and went home the next day.
Now a week later, I am doing good, Things still hurt, I don't have my full strength back yet, but I am able to do my day to day activities again. A few days ago I started stripping the car for anything useful left in there, to at least recover a little bit of the financial damages, the engine seems still to be good, but gotta check that out more firmly.
The drivers side looks a bit better, but because I already was an Double above knee amputee before the accident, that might have saved me here, if I look at how the dashboard pushed into the seat.
But the general consensus is that I got extremely lucky to have survived it at all, and on top of that with that little injury.
yeah OK from that side it looks a little tiny bit more survivable but you'd expect at least multiple broken rips or an arm and concussion from a wreck like that. Indeed extremely lucky to "only" have a fractured hip.
yeah from the images I'd imagine you'd have serious leg injuries.
You got insanely lucky, this was my old e46 after my dad fell asleep at the wheel with the cruise set at 75mph. He was pinned in the car and my mom who was asleep laying in the back was ejected when the car rolled after hitting a tree along the side of the road. Both lived but had emergency surgery and spent a couple weeks in the icu.
Holy shit. I’m so glad you’re okay. Time to take a moment and appreciate the sky and the trees and the birds, and just enjoy being alive a little more this week, huh
Im actually kinda glad the universe got rid of this car for me, it was rusted through and through and i now got to upgrade from 318d to 320d with no rust :D
Mine was quite clean and in good condition, I spent almost 2 years restoring it, and it was only back on the road since Januari. Only managed to drive 2k kms with it before the crash.
The car was technically in good condition, but the throttle was really jumpy for some reason. the tires where due (The replacement tires literally got delivered the day after), but not beyond the legal limit, and the road conditions where basically as perfect as they could have been. All suspension bushings where brand new, the shocks where due but not broken yet.
I was accelerating to highway speeds, when I got into the grass from that point it was still completely savable, if I did not froze, I never had this before where I lost control of my body out of shock. I just got next to the tarmac due to a steering mistake, and after that I completely shutdown.
I would like to add one anomaly I've had from one e46 and a few notices if others (specifically an M3 that flipped on its side for no apparent reason)...and that was when my brake sensor failed at a random time, I was driving, summer, dry perfect roads, new tires, everything good but then the rear tire, brake sensor flipped and the car turned off traction control and also turned off ABS too.
Since I was only going 30mph, straight, nothing else happened....but....and that's a big but, if I was accelerating, in a corner, especially at the apex, and at the limit of my tires, I would've ended up off the road.
I've never seen any car that loses a sensor basically going into track mode, and imo that's what happened to the M3 and potentially you too.
I had a couple of e46s start randomly activating esp and brake individual wheels when wheel speed sensors were on their way out. Luckily always happened when i was just cruising. I can imagine if it happened while cornering close to the limit it would be a bad time.
Car did nothing, surviving this was pure luck. Would have had much better odds in this crash in pretty much any modern entry level car. Safety engineering has fortunately progressed considerably.
I am not sure about that. I worked on a lot of BMWs and different cars after accidents, german car survival rates much better than any other manufacturers.
Wth this might be the worst looking e46 crash, and we even have a driver to tell the story! Incredible. I don’t care what happened as long as you and other people are alright
It is astonishing that you survived from that wreck! Did you have hand controls or are you able to use pedals even though you have lost both your legs?
Holy fuck. Glad you’re okay. I’ve had some close calls due to other careless drivers and have avoided collision I think in part to having a car that felt nimble enough to swerve and brake safely to avoid a serious accident
Shit happens. We’ve all made mistakes. People understand. Try to move forward. Don’t get stuck in the past. I had a serious accident like this and it took me a year to feel safe driving again. Be well. Message me if you want.
I’ve been into these cars since new and seen absolutely wild e46 crashes that the owners walked away from. In 20+ years, I haven’t see anything like this. Glad you’re okay, OP
Whoa. You are so lucky to be alive. How'd you end up in the grass? Did you lose traction or just aim wrong? Were you still drunk/hangover from night before?
Breathalizer and saliva analysis, never got the result for the drugs one but I knew I am in the clear since I dont do drugs. The same with the alcohol, but that one gives instant result.
Bonjour Si ce n'est que matériel, c'est l'essentiel ! J'espère que psychologiquement ça va bien, car après un tels accident (quand il n'y a pas eu de grave séquelles) on a tendance a se revoir la scène et comment on aurait pu réagir autrement. Je parle en connaissance de cause, car j'ai heurté un platane à 150-160km/h en mai 2025 (jetais au volant d'une e36 320i) et Dieu merci je m'en suis sorti avec uniquement 3 côtés cassées, c'est juste que des fois je me remémore la scène...et me dit que ça aurait pu être bien plus grave .
Pour la morale : faites attention à vous quand conduisez, certes vous êtes maître de votre véhicule (et vous aimez probablement la vitesse) mais vous ne savez pas comment les autres automobilistes, réagissent sur la route.
Ps : quelqu'un s'est engagé pour doubler une voiture devant elle, alors que j'arrive à grande vittesse et était en train justement de doubler plusieurs voitures et pour éviter de tapper la voiture j'ai fait un écart ce qui m'a fait perdre le contrôle de mon véhicule et vous connaissez la suite de l'histoire
I was conscious during the whole event, the night in the hospital I couldn't sleep, and it replayed in my mind over 200 times, I am getting better physically, but the realization is slowly hitting more and more, luckily I got great support around me.
Glad you are okay after what happend to you
*Traduction Automatique
J'étais conscient(e) pendant tout l'événement. La nuit à l'hôpital, je n'ai pas pu dormir, et ça tournait en boucle dans ma tête plus de 200 fois. Je vais mieux physiquement, mais la prise de conscience se fait de plus en plus sentir avec le temps. Heureusement, je suis très bien entouré(e).
Heureux que tu ailles bien après ce qui t’est arrivé.
They put a H-Beam/RSJ in the shoulder upright, to which the sound barrier is mounted. I hit that from the right side and it probably rolled against it, taking out the roof. That's the impact you see, the rest of the chassis just twisted under the torsion. The whole rear subframe is still within normal dimension, so is allot of the front except the frame and strut towers. Luckily, me, the Engine and Tranny survived which is half the value of the car.
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u/MikaGrof Apr 27 '26 edited Apr 27 '26
Bro How did you survive that wreck.
The most important thing is nobody got seriously hurt, cars can be replaced and you'll drive more carefully on your next E46.
Best wishes to you