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Caught On Camera: Man Survives Crushing Highway Crash

Posted: 11:03 am EST March 17, 2006Updated: 11:23 am EST March 17, 2006

A man was trapped inside a flattened Audi, pinned down by a massive tractor trailer and survived. The entire crash was caught on tape. It all happened during rush hour on one of the country's busiest highways.

The crash was captured by a camera mounted on the dashboard of a charter bus. An out of control tractor trailer careens across the Long Island Expressway, plowing the small black Audi into the median and the bus.

The car was obliterated. The driver, though, was basically fine.

"I've been picking glass out of my scalp for two days," said crash victim Bryan Pacelli.

Pacelli, 39, has a herniated disk in his neck, a couple of pinched nerves, and some scratches. No one can believe it, especially him.

"I've been in the car business 20 years and I've never seen anyone come out of a car that looked like that in one piece," he said.

The father of two can't remember the accident. His wife Kelly passed the crash site as she rushed to Nassau University Medical Center.

"The officer who pulled him out visited [and] expected a fatality. I feel extremely fortunate because my husband is here and he shouldn't be," she said.

The camera that caught the crash was installed by DriveCam, a firm that places the units on commercial vehicles so companies can monitor their employees' driving and analyze what went wrong in a crash.

"We can take a look at the video and the audio. We can coach the driver on what he or she could have done differently or should have done differently," said DriveCam CEO Bruce Moeller.

So why did Pacelli survive? There's no good explanation, but Bryan credits his faith and his Audi TT. He's an Audi dealer with a newfound respect for his product.

"The car did its job. The car was smashed to smithereens; the entire passenger compartment of the car is still intact," he said.

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