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I am not sure the Tesla has much to do with it. Her family moved to a rural area. It’s hard to get medical and emergency services there. She drove into a pond -

I am not sure the Tesla has much to do with it. Her family moved to a rural area. It’s hard to get medical and emergency services there. She drove into a pond - fast - and the tow truck couldn’t reach her car at such a distance. What’s most interesting is that for all her money, it didn’t help in the end. None of the emergency responders knew her background nor cared. We all wind up the same in the end.

defrost 3y ago
> Her family moved to a rural area. It’s hard to get medical and emergency services there. Angela Chao died on February 11, 2024, at the age of 50. According to the Blanco County sheriff, she died after her Tesla went into a pond on her private ranch (named JWCB Ranch, or JW Ranch for short), which is located at 101 Schneider Lane in Johnson City, about 40 miles west of Austin. She was under water for over an hour as rescuers tried to reach her and extricate her from the submerged car. Upon her removal from the car, EMS workers delivered "advanced life support" for 43 minutes, but were unable to revive her. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angela_Chao https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angela_Chao Assuming the address is correct: https://www.landandfarm.com/property/893-acres-in-blanco-county-300276/ https://www.landandfarm.com/property/893-acres-in-blanco-cou... https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/101-Schneider-Ln-Johnson-City-TX-78636/242960903_zpid/ https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/101-Schneider-Ln-Johnson-...
- monero-xmr 3y ago
  I read the article, which stated slow response times. > The local EMS station has one ambulance to cover 7,000 people spread out over 200 square miles. Properties more than two miles away from the station are generally given the weakest insurance safety rating of 10 based on how quickly help can arrive. The ranch is twelve miles from the station. New York, Austin and other major cities have a rating of one, by contrast. > “There are quite a few wealthy people that have these ranches, which are just big ranches with the nice homes,” said Kenneth Welch, a retired engineer who has lived in Blanco County for 17 years. “They’re gated and you can’t just drive in.” By contrast I live in a major American city, with a world renowned hospital only 0.3 miles away from me (and all the other people) and a police station similar distance. It’s simply a fact that moving to a rural gated ranch will make freak accidents harder to respond to.
  - defrost 3y ago
    Now you're adding "gated" .. There's no point here, I merely added the accident details as I was curious, and the location photos for the same reasons. I'm over 60 and have spent most of my life in places far more remote than this, albeit in the company of people that deal with accidents, fires, floods, medical dramas as they happen without waiting for big city emergancy services.
    - monero-xmr 3y ago
      I added “gated” because that was a key fact in the article explaining why she died. My point was rich people sometimes move to very remote, inaccessible mansions to avoid the hoi poloi, but there are trade offs.
      - defrost 3y ago
        I guess "gated" must somehow really really slow down emergancy crews on their way to an accident in Texas. > move to very remote, inaccessible mansions It really doesn't seem that remote, I can see other properties in the neighbourhood, it appears to be 10 mile or so from Johnson City (~2,000 people), etc, the property is under a thousand acres. This is all relative, of course; I live in a state 3x bigger than Texas and the vast bulk of the population of ~ 2 million live in the one corner making the rest of the state easily more remote than this. If you live in a large city then I guess all places "not a city" must seem equally remote to you, but I can assure it's very much not so - I worked in geophysical exploration in two thirds or so of the 190+ countries across the globe and on a remote scale of (say) New York City to Baliem Valley this is pretty much G20 city outskirts.
        JohnBooty 3y ago
        Okay, we get it. You're a rugged, self-sufficient outdoorsperson.
        twizz512 3y ago
        That's not a neighborhood it's a gated 900 acre ranch with assorted buildings.
mannykannot 3y ago
> I am not sure the Tesla has much to do with it. There are some scenarios in which a vehicle is accidentally backed into a pond up to the point where the occupants are in grave risk of drowning, but not many. If this is not one of these scenarios, then the possibility that the vehicle was in an autonomous mode is one that should be considered (this applies to any vehicle with a level of autonomy sufficient to render such an event possible, not just Teslas.)
- dragonwriter 3y ago
  > There are some scenarios in which a vehicle is accidentally backed into a pond up to the point where the occupants are in grave risk of drowning, but not many. If this is not one of these scenarios The victim apparently said that it was one of those scenarios in a call to a neighbor when it occurred, so I don’t know why we need to speculate on autonomous driving being involved. It seems a lot more likely that, if a defect was involved, it was a “manual driving” control defect that contributed to the victim’s reported unintentional shift into reverse during the three-point turn, not a problem with autonomous driving.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - mannykannot 3y ago
    On reflection, I agree. Now I'm wondering if the vehicle in question accelerates about as fast in reverse as it does forwards. This is certainly possible with an electric drive, but it's probably not desirable.
meowtimemania 3y ago
Was she unable to roll down the windows or open the door? In a normal car wouldn’t you be able to open the door once the interior fills with water or before the car is fully submerged?
- sowbug 3y ago
  PSA for potential nerd sniping victims: this question has been thoroughly analyzed by Mythbusters. https://mythresults.com/episode72 https://mythresults.com/episode72
jeffbee 3y ago
It has everything to do with the Tesla because in the Model X you can't open the door without electric power. You have to disassemble the door and pull a cable behind the speaker.
- stfp 3y ago
  Also, maybe “ludicrous” acceleration made it easy to launch the car into that pond by mistake. It’s a common selling point for EVs now but I think Tesla started the trend.
- josephcsible 3y ago
  That's only true for the rear doors, and even for them, "disassemble" is a stretch. You just pull a readily accessible handle to open the front door without power: https://www.tesla.com/ownersmanual/modelx/en_us/GUID-AAD769C7-88A3-4695-987E-0E00025F64E0.html https://www.tesla.com/ownersmanual/modelx/en_us/GUID-AAD769C...
rawgabbit 3y ago
Could she have been confused by “Shift Using the Center Console” and by “Auto Shift out of Park”? She perhaps intended to tap Reverse on the center console but accidentally tapped Park because it is next to it. With Auto Shift Out of Park, the Tesla selects drive or reverse. That is she may have thought she tapped Reverse but the car ended up in drive mode. I can see myself doing this when I am drunk, driving around in my private ranch. 1). https://www.tesla.com/ownersmanual/modelx/en_us/GUID-E9B387D7-AFEF-4AAF-8685-4FE71E09287D.html#CONCEPT_ZFM_NGY_N4B https://www.tesla.com/ownersmanual/modelx/en_us/GUID-E9B387D... 2). https://www.tesla.com/ownersmanual/modelx/en_us/GUID-E9B387D7-AFEF-4AAF-8685-4FE71E09287D.html https://www.tesla.com/ownersmanual/modelx/en_us/GUID-E9B387D...

defrost 3y ago

> Her family moved to a rural area. It’s hard to get medical and emergency services there. Angela Chao died on February 11, 2024, at the age of 50. According to the Blanco County sheriff, she died after her Tesla went into a pond on her private ranch (named JWCB Ranch, or JW Ranch for short), which is located at 101 Schneider Lane in Johnson City, about 40 miles west of Austin. She was under water for over an hour as rescuers tried to reach her and extricate her from the submerged car. Upon her removal from the car, EMS workers delivered "advanced life support" for 43 minutes, but were unable to revive her. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angela_Chao https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angela_Chao Assuming the address is correct: https://www.landandfarm.com/property/893-acres-in-blanco-county-300276/ https://www.landandfarm.com/property/893-acres-in-blanco-cou... https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/101-Schneider-Ln-Johnson-City-TX-78636/242960903_zpid/ https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/101-Schneider-Ln-Johnson-...

monero-xmr 3y ago
I read the article, which stated slow response times. > The local EMS station has one ambulance to cover 7,000 people spread out over 200 square miles. Properties more than two miles away from the station are generally given the weakest insurance safety rating of 10 based on how quickly help can arrive. The ranch is twelve miles from the station. New York, Austin and other major cities have a rating of one, by contrast. > “There are quite a few wealthy people that have these ranches, which are just big ranches with the nice homes,” said Kenneth Welch, a retired engineer who has lived in Blanco County for 17 years. “They’re gated and you can’t just drive in.” By contrast I live in a major American city, with a world renowned hospital only 0.3 miles away from me (and all the other people) and a police station similar distance. It’s simply a fact that moving to a rural gated ranch will make freak accidents harder to respond to.
- defrost 3y ago
  Now you're adding "gated" .. There's no point here, I merely added the accident details as I was curious, and the location photos for the same reasons. I'm over 60 and have spent most of my life in places far more remote than this, albeit in the company of people that deal with accidents, fires, floods, medical dramas as they happen without waiting for big city emergancy services.
  - monero-xmr 3y ago
    I added “gated” because that was a key fact in the article explaining why she died. My point was rich people sometimes move to very remote, inaccessible mansions to avoid the hoi poloi, but there are trade offs.
    - defrost 3y ago
      I guess "gated" must somehow really really slow down emergancy crews on their way to an accident in Texas. > move to very remote, inaccessible mansions It really doesn't seem that remote, I can see other properties in the neighbourhood, it appears to be 10 mile or so from Johnson City (~2,000 people), etc, the property is under a thousand acres. This is all relative, of course; I live in a state 3x bigger than Texas and the vast bulk of the population of ~ 2 million live in the one corner making the rest of the state easily more remote than this. If you live in a large city then I guess all places "not a city" must seem equally remote to you, but I can assure it's very much not so - I worked in geophysical exploration in two thirds or so of the 190+ countries across the globe and on a remote scale of (say) New York City to Baliem Valley this is pretty much G20 city outskirts.
      - JohnBooty 3y ago
        Okay, we get it. You're a rugged, self-sufficient outdoorsperson.
      - twizz512 3y ago
        That's not a neighborhood it's a gated 900 acre ranch with assorted buildings.

mannykannot 3y ago

> I am not sure the Tesla has much to do with it. There are some scenarios in which a vehicle is accidentally backed into a pond up to the point where the occupants are in grave risk of drowning, but not many. If this is not one of these scenarios, then the possibility that the vehicle was in an autonomous mode is one that should be considered (this applies to any vehicle with a level of autonomy sufficient to render such an event possible, not just Teslas.)

dragonwriter 3y ago
> There are some scenarios in which a vehicle is accidentally backed into a pond up to the point where the occupants are in grave risk of drowning, but not many. If this is not one of these scenarios The victim apparently said that it was one of those scenarios in a call to a neighbor when it occurred, so I don’t know why we need to speculate on autonomous driving being involved. It seems a lot more likely that, if a defect was involved, it was a “manual driving” control defect that contributed to the victim’s reported unintentional shift into reverse during the three-point turn, not a problem with autonomous driving.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- mannykannot 3y ago
  On reflection, I agree. Now I'm wondering if the vehicle in question accelerates about as fast in reverse as it does forwards. This is certainly possible with an electric drive, but it's probably not desirable.

meowtimemania 3y ago

Was she unable to roll down the windows or open the door? In a normal car wouldn’t you be able to open the door once the interior fills with water or before the car is fully submerged?

sowbug 3y ago
PSA for potential nerd sniping victims: this question has been thoroughly analyzed by Mythbusters. https://mythresults.com/episode72 https://mythresults.com/episode72

jeffbee 3y ago

It has everything to do with the Tesla because in the Model X you can't open the door without electric power. You have to disassemble the door and pull a cable behind the speaker.

stfp 3y ago
Also, maybe “ludicrous” acceleration made it easy to launch the car into that pond by mistake. It’s a common selling point for EVs now but I think Tesla started the trend.
josephcsible 3y ago
That's only true for the rear doors, and even for them, "disassemble" is a stretch. You just pull a readily accessible handle to open the front door without power: https://www.tesla.com/ownersmanual/modelx/en_us/GUID-AAD769C7-88A3-4695-987E-0E00025F64E0.html https://www.tesla.com/ownersmanual/modelx/en_us/GUID-AAD769C...

rawgabbit 3y ago

Could she have been confused by “Shift Using the Center Console” and by “Auto Shift out of Park”? She perhaps intended to tap Reverse on the center console but accidentally tapped Park because it is next to it. With Auto Shift Out of Park, the Tesla selects drive or reverse. That is she may have thought she tapped Reverse but the car ended up in drive mode. I can see myself doing this when I am drunk, driving around in my private ranch. 1). https://www.tesla.com/ownersmanual/modelx/en_us/GUID-E9B387D7-AFEF-4AAF-8685-4FE71E09287D.html#CONCEPT_ZFM_NGY_N4B https://www.tesla.com/ownersmanual/modelx/en_us/GUID-E9B387D... 2). https://www.tesla.com/ownersmanual/modelx/en_us/GUID-E9B387D7-AFEF-4AAF-8685-4FE71E09287D.html https://www.tesla.com/ownersmanual/modelx/en_us/GUID-E9B387D...