French Man Survives After 20-Ton Boulder Crushes His Car

The UK’s Daily Mail is reporting that a man driving through the Alps in France was smashed by a 20-ton boulder and miraculously survived the accident.

According to the Daily, Ludovic Masciave, a 36-year-old father of two, was driving through the Arly Gorge in the French Alps when the enormous rock hit his SUV.

“I remember the impact of the rock,” Masciave told French newspaper Le Parisien. “I’d been driving slowly at between 40 and 50 kilometres [25 to 31 miles] an hour when suddenly there was a terrible shock which brought the vehicle to a sudden halt. I immediately lost consciousness.”

Rescuers who discovered Masciave’s mangled car could not even determine what type of car it was due to the damage and expected to find no survivors.

Instead they found Masciave in the driver’s seat, now awake but pinned against the dashboard of his car.

“My back was pressed against the door and my torso against the rock. I was completely compressed,” Ludovic explained to the Daily. “The space was very restricted. It could be measured in centimeters.”

After they were able to free him from the wreckage, rescuers took Mr Masciave to a nearby hospital where he was found to have injured a number of vital organs, as well as damaging tendons and nerves. Despite the severity of the injuries, Ludovic is expected to make a full recovery.

“It’s a miracle I’m alive. Although I’m not a believer I do think this was a miracle…Now I will see life differently,” he told Le Parisien.

According to the Daily, the 20-boulder that crushed Ludovic Masciave’s vehicle and nearly took his life had been overhanging a pass used by thousands of skiers, including many British ones, every day.

Following his recovery, Mr Masciave said he intended to complain to the local council for not securing the boulder properly.

via Daily Mail