© AP Photo/Courtesy of Donard SonodaIn this image provided by Donard Sonoda, an unidentified man stops to assist driver Jerrin Ching (not seen) after a surfboard smashed through the front windshield of his car on a freeway in Honolulu, Sunday, Sept. 1, 2013. Witnesses said they saw the surfboard fall from an overpass and hit Ching's car as he was driving in the far left lane. Ching suffered only minor scratches in the incident.
Jerrin Ching was driving on the H-1 freeway Sunday morning when the red surfboard came out of nowhere and pierced through the glass, he told KHON- TV.
"I'm just thankful to be here," he said. "After it hit, I was like what just happened?"
Witnesses told police the surfboard fell off an overpass and bounced off a school bus. Ching said he was in the far left lane, driving east near the Punahou Street overpass, on his way to pick up a friend at the University of Hawaii, when "all of a sudden I see this red thing come out of nowhere and turns out it was a surfboard. And it just crashed through my windshield."
It's not known who the board belongs to, or where it came from. "Can you please claim your board, and I don't know, pay for the windshield or something?" he said. "Because you almost killed me."
Anyone with information about the surfboard's owner or where it came from is asked to contact Honolulu police.
The 2011 Honda Fit that Ching was driving belongs to his girlfriend, who was on Maui at the time.
Ching called it a "freak accident."
Every Surfer Has Similar Stories
You're in a hurry and strapping the surfboard to the racks. You were distracted by meeting ... whoever...(Insert your short story here.)
Then, .. "Oh sh*t!" You're late for work and driving on the Santa Monica - oops, Hilo Freeway at the "rush hour" - just before the traffic slowdown - and you hear a "whooshy"- "thumpy" sound on your car's roof..
"No! No! Nooo!!! ARRGGH!!!"
And after you get the guts up to look into the rear view mirror - it feels like 12 minutes but is really only 0.12 seconds - you watch as your beautiful board flutters down between lanes 3 and 4 in its dance of doom and becomes one with the 60mph traffic behind you. (Or in this instance, you see it fly off the bridge you were on, where it's almost certain that the cross winds were the straw that broke the camel's back of the weak glue/link between the surfboard's wax and the surf-rack's bar.)
"It's not known who the board belongs to, or where it came from."
Board recipient: Sell the board for your damages, thank Gog, and call it a day. (Don't wait for the owner to call.) (If it had killed someone, it would be easy to find the owner as that solution relates simply to the modern ease of pursuing same, its associated cost benefit analysis.)
Surfer/Owner of Board: Take your losses with your lesson. Thank God and call it a day.
R.C.
P.s., Surfer/Owner of Board and EVERYONE - REGARDING EVERYTHING:
If THEY come knocking, remember that THEY, despite (then) being friendly, are NOT your friends.
Thus, say, ONLY!!!!!!!:
- "I have nothing to say."
- "Please speak with my attorney" and/or "My attorney'll contact you when I get one," and,
- "Am I free to go?"
REPEAT UNTIL FREE....and gone.
RC