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330 Comments
- commenter01, on 05/04/2008, -9/+323following comment on youtube sums it up:
"Ain't that emblematic of humakind? One guy trying to push the flaming car over while the other 9/10 just ***** sit there and watch?" - roostishaw, on 05/04/2008, -15/+325Well what the ***** were those few guys standing around for? Jesus, at least *act* like you're helping.
- inactive, on 05/04/2008, -7/+287Heart wrenching
- cyrt, on 05/04/2008, -2/+198At that time in F1 history, only drivers wore fireresistant suits. If the other guys had tried helping, they would have caught on fire.
What I don't get is, why ddn't any of the other drivers try to help? 3 or 4 guys could have tipped over the car, maybe saved him... - lucidguru, on 05/04/2008, -9/+161That's so sad...
- ellabee, on 05/04/2008, -2/+134That was hard to watch. How does he get over something like that?
- cypher35, on 05/04/2008, -3/+133No, the really sad thing about this are some of the youtube comments...
"pwned"? Good God, if you ever feel like loosing your faith in humanity, just peruse some youtube comments and read these incomprehensible messages from white trash yokels cheering on the death of some guy they don't even know... - colonelbuckshot, on 05/04/2008, -1/+115Full version: http://youtube.com/watch?v=ho5-6taeWRQ
"What surprised me, if you want to know, is that no other drivers stopped to help. There was all this talk of 'Purley trying to rescue his friend' and so on, but that wasn't the case - I didn't know Roger well at all. What happened was purely a reflex action. In Aden, if one saw a burning tank one tried to help the people inside, and it was exactly the same at Zandvoort. A matter of a man needing help. That car burned for several laps, and all the 'safety crusaders' just kept on bombing through the accident scene without even backing off..." - BobaFettTDG, on 05/04/2008, -6/+119In situations like this, everyone in that race should have stopped to help. Maybe then he would have survived. A man's life is worth much more than some petty trophy.
Hats off to the true hero who did everything he could to save his friend, despite the fact that his efforts were in vain. - jinky32, on 05/04/2008, -11/+119oh my god, this is shocking
- Charun, on 05/04/2008, -0/+97David Purley days after the race.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=j4m35d7tYEE - megagram, on 05/04/2008, -3/+86Wow! That was a comment from YouTube?? But it's so...so...intelligent, sensible and thoughtful. I don't get it!
- daddydowse, on 05/04/2008, -2/+82that was hard to watch, but remember David Purley is wearing a fire retardent suit and a visor, he can get a lot closer to burning high octane fuel than a couple of blokes in dinner suits.
Nevertheless this was tragic. - cizzop, on 05/04/2008, -4/+84I thought the internet totally desensitized me but this is absolutely terrible. So incredibly hard to watch. I'm not digging this, its too damn depressing.
- haxymanz, on 05/04/2008, -1/+79http://www.racehistorie.nl/grandprix%202/rw737.jpg
- kenplaysviola, on 05/04/2008, -13/+87What is up with the rest of the crew? They just stood there. I can't believe it! Who are those idiots??!?? A man is trapped in a burning car, yelling and screaming for his life while they stand there and watch. And, I bet those idiots standing around are saying today, "It's a tragedy. There was just nothing we could do ... "
- YourPal, on 05/04/2008, -11/+69That's terrible. I couldn't finish watching the entire video.
- adamturtle, on 05/04/2008, -1/+56I'd rather lose a paycheck than the life of someone else
- 8randon, on 05/04/2008, -0/+50Initially, other drivers and commentators thought that it was Pulley's car that was flipped over, not Williamson's, so they continued on with the race.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_Williamson - inactive, on 05/04/2008, -10/+60*cry*
- Namaha, on 05/04/2008, -5/+48You're heartless.
- dangerz, on 05/04/2008, -3/+45There probably wasn't.
While the video is horribly sad, the other driver had a full fire suit on. Those flames get super hot. Ever go near a BBQ when it's set to high? Imagine that amplified.
No excuse for the other drivers, but I really dont think the guys wearing normal clothes could've done anything. - inactive, on 05/04/2008, -2/+42Remember this and act heroically if tested.
- mattblancarte, on 05/04/2008, -2/+42Purley was the only one wearing gear that would allow him near the car. I bet the guys standing a few feet away were cooking in the thousand degree heat...
The marshals weren't trained and weren't prepared. Modern F1 requires marshals to wear gear for a situation such as this.
All that being said, this was a terrible tragedy. - decyx, on 05/05/2008, -2/+40Sorry to post again. I found a detailed account of the tragic event that some of you might find worth reading.
"One of the cars has a burst tyre, front left and hits the guardrail. It is the red March 721 of Roger Williamson. The car gets catapulted by the guardrail, flies through the air and bounces back on the track. The car turns around it axes and slides upside down over a distance of 200 meters to a standstill opposite post #10. The cockpit fire extinguisher goes off. Brammer is scared to death and thinks of Piers Courage, "Oh no, not another one". The March lies on its rollbar with Roger Williamson still inside the car. Brammer feels adrenaline, runs to the trackside and starts to wave the yellow flag immediately to warn the other drivers.
David Purley is driving his 3rd Grand Prix and sees just in front of him Williamson being catapulted by the guardrail. Without hesitation he parks his March on the left side of the track and that is the outside part of the track. Graham Hill passes next and drives by. The other cars follow. Williamson's wrecked car is on the inside part of the Tunnel Oost turn, exactly on the ideal line, on fire already. Former paratrooper David Purley gets out of his car and crosses the track to run to Williamson. Purley tries to turn over the car by pushing the right front wheel but the car is too heavy. Brammer's colleague Hans Rens and another OCA track official cross the track and run to Williamson to assist Purley. Both men are unable to push the car because it is burning heavily and they lack protective clothing.
Then a fireman with a fire extinguisher comes to the track. Purley crosses the track for a second time and runs to the fireman. We see a 'nervous' Purley who grabs the fire extinguisher from the fireman and runs back to Williamson. On video it is clear that Purley does not know how to operate the fire extinguisher and gets assistance from the fireman. Purley sprays the fire extinguisher till it is empty. The question is if he uses the fire extinguisher properly.
When the fire extinguisher is empty Purley tries to push the car one more time and fails again to turn it over. OCA track officials try to push as well but are unable to get close to the burning car. Then Purley waves spectators to come and cross the track to assist. A second fire extinguisher arrives near the now heavily burning car. The second fire extinguisher is not able either to extinguish the fire.
Filmed by live television millions of people watch the tragedy happen but in the controltower at the Zandvoort track there is no television. At post #10 a marshal must call the controltower but now, thirty years later in 2003, nobody knows who this man was. Herman Brammer and Hans Rens were not the man in any case. The unknown man has an impossible mission because it must have been 1973 according to Brammer that the telephone cable was torn from the hook. The important message "Post #10, crash, fire", never reaches race director Ben Huisman. The race is not being stopped by a lack of information.
Stewart is chasing Ronnie Peterson when he sees waving flags in lap 9 for the first time. He sees smoke and he knows this is a big accident. "A bad news story". Who is it? No idea, there is a lot of debris on the track and Stewart must decide in a split second how fast he still can go and where to pass the wreck. "I was looking for marshals", Stewart says. "They could inform me. In a car you see the accident completely different from what spectators see. And do not forget, this is a fast part of the track. When you lower speed you must be careful no one hits you in the back. So you take a good look in your mirrors. Your mind has taken on a different zone."
"We drove by at a foot-pace", Van Lennep remembers. "Except mister Peterson who just screamed by. On a certain moment I noticed a driver next to the crashed car. After the race that appeared to have been Purley but when it happened I thought 'oh, the guy just rolls from under his car.'"
David Purley after the race: "I just couldn't turn it over. I could see he was alive and I could hear him shouting, but I couldn't get the car over. I was trying to get people to help me, and if I could have turned the car over he would have been alright, we could have got him out." Later, when the immediate grief had receded, he admitted, "I didn't even think about the heroism or any of that rubbish. I just did what comes naturally to a trained soldier who sees a fellow in trouble."
At Hunserug photographer Poppe de Boer sees smoke. He does not hesitate and grabs his equipment and starts running through the dunes. He guesses it took him around five minutes to reach the area of the accident. He only sees smoke, misery and disaster. De Boer photographes the smouldering car. He does not have a clue if someone is still in the car, he just registers with his camera.
Meanwhile Brammer gets frustrated. He sees everything but he has the yellow flag and has to wave. The situation changes all the time. People are still running across the track. At this moment race director Ben Huisman notices the black smoke as well. But no message from post #10 is received in the controltower. "It could not have happened on the track", Huisman thinks, "..because laptimes remain the same." Maybe some spectators set fire to some tires. Huisman goes up the ladder. Timekeeping does not know a thing. It must be false alarm. Besides this, didn't they build a safe track? What could happen here at Zandvoort? Later we knew something had happened but the message we received was: accident, driver OK. He is standing next to his car.
After 20 laps Huisman realizes something is terribly wrong. "Naive? Absolutely. But things are happening during races all the time and I am not a person who panics quickly. None of the drivers came into the pits to let us know something was going on." After the race Dennis Hulme tells Huisman, "*****, I have let you known something was going on."
Then from the Gerlach turn a firetruck enters the track with 500 liters of water onboard. Slowly the truck creeps up Hunserug. Not faster than 40 km/h (25 mph) Huisman guesses. It takes a long time before the old red Bedford arrives at Tunnel Oost. It is too late for Williamson as the official report says. Roger Williamson died of breathing hot gasses. When the fire is completely extinguished by the firetruck the car is turned over and a white sheet is put over the car.
“I do not know. It gets serious when a firetruck enters the track. But the message: 'he is dead'.... I really do not know when that came in. It even might have been my own conclusion. It took a long time before we knew for certain. The story grows”, Huisman says.
Huisman ends the race after 72 laps. Jackie Stewart wins. Roger Williamson's body is transported to the hospital of Haarlem. Huisman sees the bad weather coming. Dutch driver Gijs van Lennep scored a nice result, he finishes 6th and deserves one World Championship point. Dutch television reporter Frans Henrichs does not want to talk about this one point. "Goddamned!", Van Lennep swears when the reporter tells him what exactly happened at Tunnel Oost. "I have seen him getting out of his car!", Van Lennep says. But Henrichs tells him that he has seen Purley and that Williamson burned. Williamson's fiancee, Jacqui Hamilton, is being escorted from the track. Purley, a mental wreck, leaves to his hotel in Bloemendaal where he stayed with Williamson. Photographer Poppe de Boer is in his lab developing his negatives. Ronnie Peterson, who does not finish, drives with his roadcar to Tunnel Oost.
Ben Huisman realizes some hot hours are waiting for him and therefore he first wants to speak to the OCA track officials of post #10. When Brammer has told Huisman about the accident he signs a document not to talk about this outside these four walls. "After 30 years we might have reached the term of limitation and therefore I speak about this for the first time", Brammer says in 2003.
Near the controltower everybody with an opinion or a question flocks together. Drivers, journalists, teambosses and of course the race directors. It is a kind of 'press conference' in a tent. Huisman sits at a table and a wild scene unfolds. "It scared me", Huisman syas. "Everybody ran in and out, heated discussions, people were calling eachother names. I thought 'where the hell am I?'. Everybody was shouting about Williamson but the only one who knew him was me. Last year I had dinner with him in Hilversum. Dennis Hulme who called me nasty names never met Williamson."
The critics are all over. Peter Revson (McLaren) says Williamson would have had a chance if the race directors had responded faster and accurately. The race should have been stopped. Mike Hailwood says he will feel guilty all of his life because he did not stop to help Purley. Earlier that year Hailwood stopped to free Clay Regazzoni from his burning car risking his own life. Williamson's teamboss Max Mosley (president of the FIA in 2003) talks about a '*****-up'. If intelligent people would have been in charge, this would not have happened he says. Besides this the trackofficials were cowards, he concludes. Jackie Stewart does not agree. The winner of the race doubts if Williamson could have survived the accident and a fire of this magnitude. The race stopped? "I do not think so if that was necessary", he says 30 years later at the Malaisian Grand Prix 2003. "Today the safetycar would enter the track. Today's drivers do not understand how things were 30 years ago. We had to live with the knowledge anything fatal could happen any time."
After one hour the meeting at Zandvoort dies out. "It felt like a cold shower", Ben Huisman says. Huisman leaves to Graham Hill's camper and they drink a glass of beer. The driver and the race director. Both tired. "Not so good Ben", says Hill. "This is not so good, Ben." After a few minutes Huisman gets up and leaves to Tunnel Oost, the place of the accident, and then back to the summerhouse on the boulevard next to the beach.
Tom Wheatcroft, Williamson's sponsor and owner of the Donington racetrack, is being asked to come to Haarlem to identify the body. He can not do it and he asks BRM-boss Louis Stanley to go with him. "The mortuary was a simple building. Inside it felt like a church", Stanley writes in his book Behind the Scenes. "Instead of an altar there was a coffin. I had a key to open the coffin. If there has been any reprehensible picture of motor racing this was it. Roger Williamson in his affected fireproof overall, both his arms and hands for his face like he had tried to protect himself for his approaching death." - PolarBearCa, on 05/04/2008, -1/+37I don't think he ever did.
A few years alter he quit F1 and started the 'much safer' career of competitive aerobatics. He died in a crash of his stunt biplane in 1985.
I doubt he ever got over it... - BobaFettTDG, on 05/04/2008, -3/+37Wow. How about you go fill a car with gasoline, get inside, and light a match. Do us all a favor.
- fyreboltx, on 05/04/2008, -6/+39Those other drivers are no better... they just kept on driving? What were they thinking? "Oh hey! That guy just had a serious crash and the other guy's trying to help him! I'm moving up 2 spots! Yes!" They should be a ashamed. Purley is a true man... with balls. He could've been hit by another racer 100+ mph or the crashed car could've exploded more.
- OneLess, on 05/04/2008, -2/+33Grow up.
- Hefelumpman, on 05/04/2008, -0/+29http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_Williamson
"Initially the commentators on Dutch TV, race control and some of the other drivers participating in the race assumed that it was Purley's car that had crashed and that the driver had escaped unharmed. As a result the race continued at full pace while Purley desperately tried to save the life of his friend." - MechBear, on 05/04/2008, -1/+29I am under the impression that those other guys couldn't to get too close to the fire....
would be nice if the other racers could get out to help turn the car back around.... at least they have fire-retardant suits.... - crash331, on 05/04/2008, -2/+30They were ***** retards:
"A blanket was thrown over the burnt out wreck with Williamson still inside, and the race carried on." - crash331, on 05/04/2008, -2/+28A blanket was thrown over the burnt out wreck with Williamson still inside, and the race carried on.
- haxymanz, on 05/04/2008, -6/+31http://www.racehistorie.nl/grandprix%202/rw737.jpg
- PolarBearCa, on 05/04/2008, -1/+26Just out of curiosity, could you tell at 100+ mph that a guy was trapped in an upside-down flaming race car and you needed to stop to help?
Seriously, some of the hatred on here is insane. No one other than the crew standing there and Purley realized anyone was trapped. There were cars screaming by - no one could hear anything unless they were right beside it. And the drivers wore flame RESISTANT suits, that are nothing like the ones they have today - look up Niki Lauda's 1976 crash if you think they were so well protected. I don't think Purley had anything on but regular leather gauntlets, as fire-resistant gloves were difficult to manufacture as well.
Purley was truly heroic in his efforts. The track workers SHOULD have been at least trying to use extinguishers even if they could not flip the car, but they were not well equipped with most of what they needed. The other drivers would not have known, and would not have been told what was happening - it just was not "done" back then. Fans who realized what was happening tried to get onto the track to help, but were stopped by security. There were no provisions in the rules for stopping the race for a wreck... it took almost 10 minutes for a fire truck to arrive!
And, from what I know of the history, many of the drivers WERE ashamed and grief-stricken.
It is really easy to look back at something from 35 years ago and judge, but this was more or less modus operandi for F1 back then. - DannySpace, on 05/04/2008, -2/+26I can't even describe the chills. That's one of the most selfless things I've seen in a long time.
- Joshuarr, on 05/04/2008, -1/+24You really know how to make friends...
- uncool, on 05/04/2008, -1/+23It's hard to put a stranger's life above your own. A lot harder than being a tough guy on the internet. Not the belittle the acts of mr. Purley (really, he did the best anyone could have done), but he probably wasn't risking his life anymore than the guys that stood a couple of yards back. Fortunately accidents like this have brought on a substantial increase in security on race tracks.
- PolarBearCa, on 05/04/2008, -0/+22Many, many years ago (probably before a lot of diggers were born) I saw this in a video/documentary called "The Quick and the Dead". The truth is that this is but one of MANY heart-wrenching scenes that were included.
Back in the day, Formula One was nearly considered a bloodsport. Safety didn't keep up with speed, and there was very little protection from fire. In the early 70s, at least 8 top-level drivers were killed...
Worse than this was Tom Pryce in 1977 - two track workers with fire extinguishers ran across the track to the aid of a driver experiencing trouble with an engine fire passed in front of 4 racers rounding the final corner. One made it, one didn't. Tom Pryce's car hit the marshal, launching him spinning into the air, killing him. The marshal's fire extinguisher struck Pryce in the helmet, partially decapitating him with the helmet strap. No one realized right away that Pryce had been killed as his car continued some distance down the track before knocking another car out of the race and coming to a stop.
The marshal was only able to be identified by figuring out which worker was missing in a post-race head count.
Brutal and gut-wrenching stuff.
Modern-day safety improvements == good - mal1964, on 05/04/2008, -5/+26That's A Man!
- shazbot, on 05/04/2008, -0/+20We have Good Samaritan laws that protect people in those instances.
- thecosmicpope, on 05/04/2008, -1/+19The marshals did not wear fire suits back in those days. They wouldn't have been able to get that close to the car.
- Disease, on 05/05/2008, -0/+18Come back to me when a life is lost because you were more interested in yourself and your money to help. Let me know how you feel.
- Hefelumpman, on 05/04/2008, -1/+18http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_Williamson
"Initially the commentators on Dutch TV, race control and some of the other drivers participating in the race assumed that it was Purley's car that had crashed and that the driver had escaped unharmed. As a result the race continued at full pace while Purley desperately tried to save the life of his friend." - JCE504, on 05/04/2008, -1/+18As heart breaking something like that it is, its amazing how much safety has improved in F1 cars, and in all types of motorsports. Going from that in 1973 to people surviving with only bruises after a head on 180 mph impact is a large leap.
May 1st was also the anniversary of Ayrton Senna's death in Imola. - Buu3, on 05/04/2008, -1/+18It's people like you that give society a bad name. Bogoff looser.
- RSS14, on 05/04/2008, -1/+16It was so sad when he walked away from the vehicle, accepting his friends fate. I can't imagine how that must have felt for him.
- GunOfTheMartyr, on 05/04/2008, -2/+17Damn, that tears me up.
- Carramrod72, on 05/04/2008, -1/+16How dare you sir? Oliver is trying to help you and your family.
- ridd1e, on 05/04/2008, -1/+16My heart would have stopped if I had seen one of my friends die in a fire, meters from available help. This is equally outrageous and depressive.
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