Man who allegedly crashed Tesla off cliff arrested for attempted murder


A crash victim is lifted to a helicopter during a rescue operation after a vehicle carrying two adults and two children went over a cliff in Devil's Slide, Calif., on Monday.

© CHP – Golden Gate Division Air Operations via Facebook/via REUTERS A crash victim is lifted to a helicopter during a rescue operation after a vehicle carrying two adults and two children went over a cliff in Devil’s Slide, Calif., on Monday.

When rescue crews arrived, the scene appeared grim. A four-door sedan had plunged 250 feet down a cliff along a treacherous section of California’s Highway 1, apparently flipping several times before landing feet from the churning Pacific Ocean.

But peering through binoculars, rescuers saw movement inside the Tesla, said Brian Pottenger, a battalion chief for Coastside Fire Protection District/Cal Fire. At that moment, he said in a video shared on Twitter, “we knew that we had at least one person that was alive.”

After a highly technical operation at the coastal San Mateo County roadway, a 7-year-old girl, a 4-year-old boy and two adults, both 41, were pulled from the wreckage alive but seriously injured. Rescue officials called it a miracle.

Now, investigators say they believe the vehicle’s driver, Dharmesh Arvind Patel, drove the Tesla off the cliff intentionally. He was arrested on suspicion of attempted murder and child abuse, the California Highway Patrol said late Tuesday. Patel will be sent to San Mateo County jail after hospital treatment. A lawyer for Patel could not immediately be identified.

The California Highway Patrol said it had not determined what driving mode the Tesla was in, but it did not “appear to be a contributing factor in this incident.”

The rescue operation began about 11 a.m. Monday at the stretch of highway called Devil’s Slide, about 15 miles south of San Francisco. Opened in 1937, the road has long been considered perilous, winding along a rocky cliff with a sheer drop-off to the ocean. Authorities made changes, including adding tunnels that bypass a dangerous portion of the road, but fatalities have continued, the San Francisco Chronicle reported in June.

At least 30 deaths happened along the roadway between 1990 and 2021, the newspaper reported, citing a review of news stories over that period, which does not capture every death. Others have managed to survive, including a driver who suffered mild to moderate injuries after driving off the road in November.

“Any time we see a vehicle drive off a cliff and down such a steep cliffside, seeing people survive is incredible,” California Highway Patrol Officer Andrew Barclay told The Washington Post.

Rescuer recover Tesla passengers from California cliff wreck

What to watch next

UP NEXT

UP NEXT

Source