The title pretty much sums up the basic story here but then again, like many things in life, the basic story doesn’t really seem to be the most logical, sensible, or believable tale ever told. The story released by the Oregon State Police is that a 19-year old driver was cruising through a 770-ft long tunnel and as he was heading through the tunnel, the guy was holding his breath. He held his breath long enough to pass out and cause an accident that saw his car wrecked and the cars of two normal people that were just driving, breathing, and trying to live their lives also mangled.

First off, we have heard of the old superstitious act of holding your breath as you pass by a grave yard. Frankly, we think it is all hogwash, but we’ve at least seen people joke about and actually do that. We have never seen someone hold their breath though a tunnel before. That may be a west coast thing or just a thing idiot 19-year olds do. So that part struck us as weird but the part that makes the whole story suspect surrounds the guy passing out from holding his breath for too long while inside the tunnel. Why? The tube is only 770ft long and had he been traveling at the speed limit of 55-mph he would have covered that distance in about 10-seconds. 90 year olds can hold their breath for 10-seconds, surely a strapping, young 19-year old could do the same damned thing, right?

SOMETHING is askew here. Maybe it was just the 19-year old freaking out and giving a crummy story to the cops to try and misdirect them from a driving mistake that would have gotten him cited for something else. Maybe the dude was whacked out on something. Maybe the guy is, in fact a total dummy with horrible respiratory and circulatory health who cannot stay conscious for 10 seconds while holding his breath. We’d ask that if the latter is the case, how in the hell is the man fit to be operating a freaking car?!

Here’s an excerpt from a King5.com news story that sets the scene:

On Sunday, at around 4:45 p.m. a westbound Toyota Camry driven by Daniel J. Calhon, 19, of Edmond Wash., entered a tunnel west of Manning Ore. on Highway 26. Calhon, said he held his breathe while in the tunnel which caused him passed out, according to Lt. Gregg Hastings of the Oregon State Police.

Calhon’s vehicle then crossed the center line and hit an eastbound Ford Explorer head-on. The Camry and the SUV crashed into the interior tunnel walls and Calhon’s vehicle then hit a GMC pickup truck, Hastings said.