Lucky?
Brennan Eden doesn't describe himself that way, even after surviving a horrific crash last August in which his car went airborne at 100 mph and exploded against an Interstate 675 bridge pillar near Dayton.
"If I were really lucky, this would never have happened," said Eden, 20, of Deerfield Township.
Why the 2009 Mason High School graduate didn't incur fatal injuries - and how he's resumed a normal life - will be explained in "The Indestructibles," a National Geographic show on Fox Saturday (9 p.m., Channel 19) and Fox's National Geographic Channel Sunday (10:30 p.m.).
At the center of the show is the amazing Sugarcreek Township Police dashboard video of Eden's 1985 Pontiac Firebird Trans Am going off the road, vaulting 14 feet into the air and disintegrating against the overpass support on Aug. 23.
Crash expert Tim Leggett analyzed the video and did tests to explain to viewers how Eden's ejection before impact spared his life.
Eden told The Enquirer he doesn't remember what happened. He thinks he fell asleep. He had been up more than 20 hours, visiting a Dayton friend after his 5 p.m.-1 a.m. shift at a Mason UDF.
"It's a complete blur to me. It looks on the video like I fell asleep, because (the car is) lazily drifting off the side of the road," said Eden, who returned full-time as a UDF clerk in May.
His life today is "much the same as it was before, other than I don't drive," he said.
Eden pleaded no contest Dec. 2 to several charges, including reckless operation. His license was suspended for two years.
The Ohio State Highway Patrol said in September he did not have drugs or alcohol in his system when he crashed even though he had been cited an hour before by Beavercreek police for having an unopened beer can in his Firebird and possessing a trace of marijuana and drug paraphernalia.
For the first few days after the crash, his mother and stepfather, Andrea Eden Shingleton and Jeff Shingleton, prayed that the teen would just wake up. Doctors feared he would be paralyzed if he survived, Eden said.
Eden suffered broken bones in his legs, back and pelvis, and burns and skid marks on his face and arms. He spent about two weeks at Dayton's Miami Valley Hospital, and a month at Drake Center in Hartwell.
"I didn't believe I was in a car crash for the first four weeks, until a cousin brought in his laptop and showed me the video," Eden said.
After extensive physical therapy, he was walking with a cane by December. He was working part-time by March.
His mother and stepfather don't consider Brennan lucky, either.
"It's just a miracle of God," his mother says on the show.
Leggett, the crash expert, comes the closest of all to calling Eden lucky.
For the TV show, he determined "a perfect storm of factors" resulted in Eden "surviving what should have been a deadly crash."
A natural dirt ramp in the grass median launched the Trans Am into the air.
The airborne car rotated so the passenger side absorbed the crash.
The car disintegrated before the energy of the crash was transferred to Eden.
Eden fell at an angle, and slid down the highway, allowing him to avoid life-threatening injuries, Leggett said.
As Eden explained, after revisiting the scene with Leggett last spring: "It's not the going fast that kills you, it's the stopping fast."
Eden, who has watched the video "hundreds of times," said seeing it again on TV won't bother him.
"It was emotional for me maybe the first couple of times. I think it would hit me more if I remembered it. Now it doesn't bother me," he said.
Although the crash was 11 months ago, "it seems like years" to the stay-at-home dad and Sunday school teacher at Vineyard Community Church in Springdale.
"Brennan was determined to get back to normal as quick as he did. The surgeons did an excellent job of putting him back together again. He's back to Brennan.
"Eight to 10 things had to happen for him to be alive. I don't believe in luck. We believe it was an act of God to save his life," he said.
Eden looks forward to driving again in 18 months. He's "thinking of getting a cheap little economy car," not another Trans Am.
wow. You're not kidding he's lucky to be alive