The Mystery of the Crushed Car: Solved!

Wow. I was impressed at how much the story Man Fell (Down) on Fell (Street) took off, thanks to the good folks at Reddit and SFist. 50,000 pageviews later, here we are.

Comments on those sites and on the treyblog gave hints of what might have happened. Now we have the real story!

As an aside, I'm disappointed with the cruelty of half the comments, but so goes teh Internets.

I was contacted over email by the couple who own/owned the unfortunate car. They also passed along a couple photos for proof. Notably, this one...



Without further ado, here is the full story in the words of Lina and Mark:

We’d had a couple of stressful months relative to cars and motorcycles, with the break-in of our car, the break-ins in our apartment building , and then Mark’s bike being stolen. Needless to say when we walked to our car to drive to a friend’s birthday dinner on Saturday the 14^th, we thought someone was playing a joke on us. When we walked up, there was glass so far away from the car, we thought ‘Oh my God, did someone break into our car again? For what!? The stereo’s already gone!’

Getting closer, it looked like just a lot of glass. When we got to the car, we realized it wasn’t just a break-in – then we saw the hood and the now infamous note from our neighbor. We stood there in shock for a few minutes, and then a couple came out of the apartment building and said ‘Holy crap dude, is this your car?” We just sort of nodded in silence.

The tenant went on to tell us what happened: The man on the 6^th floor who jumped, and yes, who has AIDS, was not altogether sober, and this wasn’t the first time he’d attempted suicide. He had jumped off his 6^th floor balcony (about 80 feet up) and went through the electrical wires, spraying sparks everywhere, and then landed on our car. The wires broke his initial fall, and then of course he hit the hood. And yes, he was naked. Supposedly, he got off the car by himself and pulled himself to the curb, then passed out. The last news we heard was that he’s in an induced coma.

So, about the notes: there were two on our car when we got there, one which was a police report with an incident number – I filled out the report and sent it in but haven’t heard back yet – and the other, hand-written one, was from our building manager. The car was left on the street from Saturday, when we found it, until Monday morning, when it was towed.

We had the car towed, got some estimates to fix it and of course the damage was way more than the value of the car. We talked to our insurance company, which wouldn’t cover anything. My husband didn’t have theft insurance on the motorcycle to boot, so we’re basically S.O.L.

We ended up calling our local news-talk radio station, KGO-AM, to speak with their on-air lawyer Len Tillem about our legal options. He said that Mark was out of luck unless our insurance covered people falling out of the sky (or something to that effect), that the building can’t be held liable and that our insurance policy doesn’t cover it. The guy who jumped, no one has been able to figure out whether he’s got insurance coverage, and he’s in a medically-induced coma with no family around.

To add insult to injury, when the CHP found the motorcyle, it was towed to a scrap yard in Hayward. It was a total wreck – looked like it had been dropped on either side, parts missing and other parts being held together by bungee cords, so obviously driving was out of the question, as was repairing it. So, we made the decision just to let it go. The real clincher was that we had to pay $370 for the towing fee, storage fee and disposal fee. It’d have been better for us if CHP just hadn’t found it!

So, that’s our story for all the people who’ve wanted some answers. We certainly feel terrible for the person who jumped off of their balcony, and all things considered, we’re blessed in our lives. Here’s hoping that Hayes Valley becomes more secure. We love the area, but the last couple of months have been trying to say the least!

Shoot me a message if you want to follow up with Mark and Lina. I thank them for the details, and my heart goes out to the man from the roof.