In early August, Indy 500 and Le Mans champion A. J. Foyt narrowly escaped a grim death, when the bulldozer he was using tipped over into a lake.
Foyt was quoted in various media after the near miss as saying, “I came awful close this time. It scared me. The cage [around the driver] probably saved my life, because without it, the dozer would have crushed me.
“But the cage also made it hard to escape. I had to crawl through the front of it and it was hard to do under water. I’ll be honest, I was panicked a little bit.”
Unable to free himself, Foyt spent another 15 minutes trapped in the lake before rescuers came to his aid.
“I knew I’d get too tired trying to haul my big butt out of there,” Foyt commented. “But as I was calling for help, I saw a water moccasin swim by. I started splashing like hell then. After about 15 minutes, someone heard me and stopped to help. If I hadn’t made it to the top of the dozer, they would never have found me because it was completely under water.”
