I’ve noticed that when people want to “prove” that humans are capable of amazing things under stress, they often cite the 90-pound mother who lifts a car off her trapped child. I know humans can do incredible things, like the guy who chopped his own hand off to get free from a fallen boulder, but have mothers really hoisted cars? Has anyone actually seen this happen or is it an urban legend? Are we talking about a Yugo here or a 1956 Caddy? Let me know soon, Unca Cecil–I’m trying to walk more these days, and if I get run over I need to know whether to call mom or a tow truck. –Eric Rapp, Los Angeles
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The woman’s name is Angela Cavallo, and she still lives in Lawrenceville, Georgia, where the incident happened on April 9, 1982. (An Associated Press account didn’t appear till April 14, but Angela remembers the date because it was Good Friday.) Her then-teenage son Tony had a 1964 Chevy Impala jacked up in the driveway–he’d removed a rear tire and was working on the suspension. A neighbor kid came to the kitchen door to tell Angela there’d been an accident. She rushed out to find Tony pinned under the car–something had been stuck and in trying to loosen it he’d rocked the car off the jack. Now he was caught in one of the rear wheel wells; she could see of him only from the waist down. Ancient Chevies being big ol’ cars with a lot of room around the wheels, Tony wasn’t immediately crushed. But he was out cold.
Some may quibble that lifting a car a couple inches is hardly the same as picking it up. A doctor friend says an adrenaline rush (norepinephrine rush, whatever) wouldn’t last five minutes and suggests what we’re seeing here wasn’t so much superhuman strength as endurance in the face of otherwise overwhelming pain. Maybe; my point is, car-lifting stories have a basis in fact. I’ve got a line on a couple similar tales but no details yet. In the meantime, a few other tidbits:
Art accompanying story in printed newspaper (not available in this archive): illustration/Slug Signorino.
