If you zoom out just a bit....UNC Rex Healthcare is just around the corner. He knew it like the back of his hand, used it every day, and didn't have long to reach that speed. I went 140 years ago in my Supra Turbo in the middle of a swamp...that was insane fast with nothing but gators and straight blacktop to worry about. Not an accident imo....

Must be.

And i had an ML430 (Mercedes), and I rear-ended a car that had itself rear ended a car. Since her tail was up in the air, the airbags did not need to blow, and they didn't. However, the pretensioners did, and they worked like a charm.

And once the cordite smell cleared, I saw the red SRS light on the dash, and the belt wouldn't work again until replaced.

SRS is not a Merc naming.
It's a general term not unique to any brand or manufaturer.

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Just heard from someone that knows the family claims it was most likely intentional :-(

Just glad nobody else was involved.

That really sucks.

RIP.

Was divorce and kids or an impending divorce and kids in the mix?

I don't own any cars that start with a push button. Last week i rented one...and had to think a few seconds when i stopped...regarding how to shut the engine off.

Never had an airbag deploy. Seems like that would be painful. My cars mostly do not have any...or an old system. I hit a large deer in My Cayenne at about 45 and no deployment. Also was truck pretty hard from the side in my wife's 2001 Lexus and no airbag (although the SUV that rammed my door did). I totally my fort 911 ('74 targa) when a high school kid turned in front of me. He airbag broke her air. I was uninjured. It hit her car on the passenger side. Both were totaled.

When I was stationed in Germany, there were no speed limits on most of the Autobahn. Although scary at first, it did not take long before I drove in the far left lane well north of 100 anytime i was on an Autobahn. You could drive from Frankfurt to almost anywhere in that country and beyond at those speeds without slowing down for anything but gas or border crossing. I got used to it very quickly and took my family all over Europe at those speeds. You have to stop for gas a lot when driving 120-125 or more for long periods. Now and then a car would slowly gain in the rear view and then pull up to pass and i would have to move right a lane. Hard to imagine after looking at destruction like this. I did have a crazy (or inattentive) driver cut me off once at that speed. We were traveling from Frankfurt to Berlin for a vacation. One of those tiny little cars with a lawnmower engine (Trabant) swerved in front of me. It was only doing about 45 in the fast lane. Locked up the brakes and did several 360s and ended up in the emergency lane after my fat tires scrubbed off a lot of speed. Wife and kids screamed the entire time. Lucky because we were in traffic and everyone else must have dodged. Had flat spots on all four tires afterwards and had to get them replaced.

Unfortunately....that's the only explanation that makes sense to me under the circumstances.

Still sad for those he left behind...

Beyond my comprehension how someone could leave their children like this. I have always thought suicide the most selfish of acts.

He was in fact a colorectal surgeon.

I think the deal is that by the time someone is seriously thinking about suicide, they are not really completely rational/reasonable any more.

You can only decide to do that once, so put it off until tomorrow, you can always do it tomorrow.

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Relating to antidepressants and potential side affects, but why they are worth trying:

"One of the side affects of untreated depression is that you kill yourself" - Jordan Peterson


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Surgeons, as a group, experience a much higher rate of burnout, depression and ideation of suicide, than that in the general population.

I lost my wife, an ophthalmologist, last year.

This is a huge problem in the health care community.

I am very sorry to hear this, please accept whatever small comfort from a stranger on the internet I can offer. :(

I had a good friend who dropped-out of a prestigious surgical residency when we were young because he did not want the stress. This was someone who was at age 28 already a former pro skier, graduated at the top of his class from one of the best med schools in the land and was the oldest son of a very prominent physician where he grew up. The residency was @ UCLA Harbor Medical Center, which was a place in those days where staff got more gunshot experience than a lot of Viet Nam war medics had gotten.

He wound up switching to anesthesia and opening up some sports medicine/pain management clinics back in Minnesota and writing a book, getting stinking rich in the process and having a large family.

My BIL, a cardiac surgeon w a practice that had him busier than a one-armed paper hanger, hung up his surgical spurs in his late 30s and pivoted into emergency medicine and being staff at a major hospital in Minneapolis, because he felt that his surgical practice was eating into time w his young family at the time. He made the right call and he and my sister raised some great kids.

My sister, in her early 50s w an empty nest, (2 recent college grads and baby away in college), just walked away from her very successful practice where she was a partner in a derm clinic and is back in school getting her Masters in PH in an intensive, accelerated program. She is done w medicine as a service provider and going into a different, (but related), field. None of their 3 smart kids are going into medicine as far as I can see, (youngest is a sophomore in college), even w both parents very successful MDs.

It's not the happy profession that young med students dream about in a lot of cases I know. I'm sure that it's rewarding at times, (saving lives on the operating table), but also takes a cruel toll in today's professional climate.

I think most jobs grind people down; increasingly unachievable 'objectives', no respect for personal time, chasing immediate results, numbers, numbers, and more numbers, etc. At some point everyone is a production worker.

If you are too wrapped up in your job, if it's the center of your life and the primary source of happiness then you are doomed to have difficult times. The secret is balance.

And you can't take the 'I will be happy when I retire' approach. Lead a full life.

I'm so sorry. I cannot begin to imagine....

I had to read this a few times. A bit stunned.
My heart to you, brother!!!

So sorry for your loss, Rinty.

Thanks for your sentiments, guys.

Speeder:

Your friend and relatives are fortunate to have gotten out, when they did.