California doctor who allegedly tried to kill his family failed because of ... trends now
The alleged murder suicide plotted by a California doctor that involved driving his car off of a cliff with his family inside likely failed because of his Tesla's batteries preventing the car from flipping during the plunge.
Dr. Dharmesh A. Patel, 41, has been accused of intentionally trying to kill his wife Neha, 41, and their four-year-old son and seven-year old daughter on Monday after he plunged their car off the side of a cliff.
Speaking to NBC News, mechanical engineering professor Jingwen Yu said that Patel 'probably underestimated how safe a vehicle could be, which provided us "hope" for vehicle safety.'
Although Yu conceded that the family's survival was also a 'kind of miracle, considering the impact severity.'
Though he did point to the quality of the Tesla's seatbelts and hard roof on top of the fact that the car's batteries give it a low center of gravity as possibly aiding the miraculous event.
Patel is accused of intentionally driving his white Tesla Model Y off a cliff known as Devil's Slide on Monday near San Francisco, during a trip north. Miraculously, all four members of the family - Patel, his wife Neha and their kids aged four and seven (pictured together) - survived without any serious injuries
Rescuers work on retrieving a destroyed Tesla sedan that had plunged off a cliff in Devil's Slide in San Mateo County, California, on Monday
In the same feature, a professor of mechanical engineering at California State University Sacramento, Jose Granada, said that the car could not have flipped or it would have been crushed.
Earlier, Brian Pottenger of the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection had told the media that he believed the car 'flipped several times.'
Rather, Granada said that the car made a straight drop, landing on pebbles and sand. He compared it to landing in a ball pit at Chuck E. Cheese, even though the fall at top speed would have been around 80 mph.
It has since emerged that cops were called Patel's family home in Pasadena nine times since 2017 in response to burglary alarms and reports of suspicious people in the vicinity.
Tesla's seatbelts and hard roof on top of the fact that the car's batteries give it a low center of gravity possibly saved the Patel family's lives
The move was not out of the ordinary for Patel, who would often be seen pushing his four-year-old son and seven-year-old daughter in their stroller with his wife Neha, 41 (pictured together)
