The Story of the Helsinki Car Crash VideoPosted Feb 5, 2012 by Stefan Caunter

It's been over 48 hours since we were pulled out of the pile-up on the highway from Lahti to Helsinki. I've been largely unaware of the impact of this video, although with over half a million views in two days, I have some idea. I'm sure it has been on the news media here. I know a version was on a news website, but that's about it.

The youtube comments have been interesting. Obviously they come from a place where there is limited context. You either see it from someone's email to you sharing it, with their set up of it, or you see it on the news; either way, you have your own ideas about what you are seeing, and very little idea about how this happened.

First of all, the snow started very suddenly. It was clear and dry when we left Lahti. We got more than halfway before it started snowing. The whiteout at the beginning of the video was only the second one. We noticed we couldn't see at one point, and then it got better. We passed police trying to get people off the road, at a major interchange. Many commenters wonder why that had not happened. They already knew conditions were bad, but we had no sense of it, and were able to continue. Again, there had been no cars off to the side. Yet. We were in the first set of collisions.

My friend in the back, Sheldon Monderoy of LiveStream Finland, said, "You should take a picture". So, I started the camera. It was set to movie, not picture. And yes, I was holding it wrong. I turned it on, and the second whiteout came almost immediately. I remember, we had been passed by a black car previously. As the camera goes down to my leg, I forget about it completely, because there is the black car just to our left, stopped. It has hit a white van, directly in front of us. Our driver, Jani, goes to the left, toward the black car, and I am sure we are going to hit. The camera goes down as I brace for impact, and close my eyes. Amazingly, we don't hit the black car. We land softly in the ditch, in four feet of soft snow. Airbags did not deploy. Doors were not that buried, so we could open them with moderate force. It's important to understand how critical it was that we got to the ditch. The car had Nokian tires, the best, studded ones. This, and Jani's driving skill, practised in the Finnish military, allowed us to get out of the centre of the road, where we would surely have gotten smashed.

It is at this point that we realize we are sitting ducks. With the doors open, Monderoy is the first out, and we are hit for the first time. He considers getting back in, but Jani and I realize we are in terrible danger. We go out the driver side front door. I see a man, dazed, on his knees, his face bleeding from hitting his airbag, in the ditch. We run up across the median in three feet of snow, up to the side of the northbound highway. I realize now that the movie is still recording, and that I have the camera in my hand. I start to show my friends, first Sheldon, then Jani, but the crashes start, and I swing around to see what the noise is.

At this point I realize I can document some of what is happening. Cars keep coming, in the whiteout, with no idea of what is in front of them. The only reason there were no fatalities is that there were no trucks. I shudder at the thought. Nevertheless, the sounds of the impacts are terrible to witness. I turn off the camera because I cannot watch any more, and put it in my pocket. After a couple of more minutes, traffic stops, and we start to go back to the scene to see who needs help, and to see if we can use the car to stay warm in the -20C weather.

Many people have commented on speed. These cars were not going that fast. In Canada, where I am from, it would have been much worse. The Finnish drivers were amazing. I still have no idea why there were no trucks behind us, or why we didn't take harder hits before we got out. Four of us were lined up bashed into each other in that ditch. Each car behind got it worse and worse.

So, I wanted to have the chance to put some context into the video. It's a terrifying snapshot of something that I hope no one ever has to go through. Thirty eight people were injured. Anyone of us could have been killed by a truck, or by a car as we ran for our lives. You can see just one example of that on the video. Part of me feels guilty for escaping unhurt, and part of me feels guilty for making the movie, if only because of the suffering and misery it documents, as well as resurrecting how terrifying an experience it was; I'm reminded however, that it was only by purest chance that the camera was on at that moment. It was the thought that in the beautiful Finnish countryside, an amazing snowstorm was happening, and here I am, visiting, on my way to Helsinki. To end up in the ditch, at the front of the biggest car crash in 100 years in Finland? Well you could not ever think that the camera would be on. Even held the wrong way...

We got on our way, three and a half hours later, the car remarkably unscathed, and drove through five kilometres of wrecked cars off to the side. The Finnish emergency workers were incredibly efficient, well-equipped, and organized. It seems that as the storm intensified, it caused everyone to crash. Our crash was the worst, and most concentrated, but that was a very rare event indeed, and very surely no one's fault. No one could have kept control of a small car in such a freakishly intense whiteout, that came so suddenly.

I'll post the full HD version of the video on ScaleEngine later. YouTube is fine, but I run a video streaming company, don't I?