June 27, 2009
Every Second Counted
Neal Kroll was about 90 miles from his home in Spokane, Washington, on a snowy, icy evening when he had a near miss with a train. Neal couldn’t stop in time, so he accelerated instead. He barely missed the train, but was unable to avoid a nose dive over a 30-foot cliff into the frozen Palouse River. He couldn’t be seen from the road.
“I missed the bridge by a few feet, and when I went over the cliff, I was far enough down that nobody passing by would have seen me,” he says. His 2008 Envoy had landed vertically in the river and was trapped in the ice. Neal had broken four ribs and punctured a lung, and temperatures outside were dropping to 14 degrees.
He was unconscious for a while, but was awakened by an OnStar Advisor, who had already called emergency responders. All alone in the cold, Kroll says it was nice to know that someone cared and that help was on the way. “It was really comforting to hear Sherwin, the OnStar Advisor. Thank God for OnStar.”
When he made contact with Neal Kroll, OnStar Emergency Advisor Sherwin Broome knew Neal was in a life-or-death situation. “I could tell by the GPS data that Neal’s car was in the water,” Sherwin says. “I later learned that no one saw him go off the road. It was dark, and the weather was freezing. I really feel if it wasn’t for OnStar and our technology, it could have been days before anyone found him. Knowing I potentially helped save a life is one of the greatest satisfactions of the job.”
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Tags: Enovy, GMC, Neal Kroll, Spokane, Train Crash, Washington
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Very scary thought. I am glad my wife and I have OnStar in our vehicles in case of an emergency. We both have cell phones, but still keep the OnStar service.
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