I would think too there would be facial,arms,head scarring.

If she went thru the windshield with the very top of her head busting out the windshield, I could see how her face may not have had any cuts, or perhaps only superficial cuts to the face that didn't require sutures.

The head is quite vascular & thus bleeds copiously, so she could have had significant blood loss, also traumatic brain injury. Hence: "almost died".

So, the story seems plausible to me.

Any thing is possable....my Aunt was hit by a steetcar
in 1941, her senior year of high school. Her back
was broken and she was in bed for many months, but
to this day has had no long lasting problems from
this accident.

I worked for a man back in the late 70's to mid 80's. His previous job had been cfo for a major oil company. While there he and his team spent long hours installing state of the art accounting computer systems. They worked hard and toward the end of each day broke out the bottle and had a few drinks. On the way home late one night he rear ended a parked car and was thrown through the windshield. His scalp was peeled almost to the back of his head. When I met him quite a few years later you could not tell anything had ever happened. He had no facial scarring and still had all his hair. So, yes, you can be thrown through the windshield and not have visible signs all these years later.

I should have added that when I mentioned this scenario to my husband, he told me about a fellow in his dive club that stopped very quickly, thereby putting his wife through the front windshield. She had permanent scars on both her face & a side of her neck. This was in the late 1950ties before mandatory seatbelt laws in California. Thankfully, that is the only story I can relate on this subject, except that my mother stopped quickly at a stop sign when I was about 5, I hit the very-hard-back-then dashboard & ended up with a big chip in one of my front baby teeth.

I would believe her. You cannot know what parts of her body was injured. The accident was over a half century ago, and scars can diminish over time.

I had a teacher in high school that was in a horrific car accident (hit by a drunk driver) and she was thrown out the driver door and nearly run over when she was in high school. (Probably in the 1950's) She had to have her nose reconstructed due to all the damage. Frankly I don't remember her face looking odd or having scars at all? So it may be possible. She could have had work done since then also?

Sure, it depends on what angle her head was when she hit the windshield. The top of her head may have been the injured part, sparing her face.

And we care...why?

Oh geeze...give me a break

What Chisue said. Seriously.

Just the facts.

Even in the earliest days vehicles had windshields made of tempered glass which breaks into rounded edged pieces when shattered.

By the time this women had her accident most windshield glass was laminated which also would avoid severe (cut like) injuries to a person going through it.

I remember when I was a child a little girl went through the glass door/window at a skating rink. People marveled that she wasn't all cut up.

At home my dad commented that if you go through glass at straight momentum you will not get cut. Only if you were thrust back through the shards or fall into the shards or got hit by them would you get severe cuts. The glass and the person are both moving in the same direction. Similar to the little trick of passing your finger through a candle flame without getting burnt.

So the short answer is yes she could have had the accident she described without lasting scars.

Well gosh Chisue and Chloecat, since you brought it up, we care about your snotty opinion...why? Seriously.

I guess anything is possible. When I was a kid, I fell against a very hot coal burning stove, and got a severe burn on one of my forearms. I remember having the burn and Mom and G Mom slicing raw potatoes, and putting them on the burn then wrapping with torn up strips of sheets. I was never taken to a Dr, and they continued the treatment for (what seems like now) a long time. There is no scaring and I can;t tell which arm it was.

There always has to be one...I mean two of those...HAHA!

I'm guess this lady must have a history of story telling for you to question? I have one of these people in my family too, I just take everything she says with a grain of salt. HA!

kfca37 -- My question is the same as what arkansas_girl asks. Do you want to challenge this woman's story, and if so, WHY?

Arkansas Girl, fortunately this lady is not in my family, though I did assist a distant family relative of hers in compiling genealogy on her branch. So I'm always still fascinated by the stories, large & small, that she comes up with in newspaper or tv interviews. From past history, the likely thing is the accident never happened in the first place. However I was also genuinely curious about damage from glass from anybody being ejected through an auto windshield. BTW, my husband, who was an engineer by occupation for many years, has often stated that he finds simple glass to be one of the most interesting properties in the universe.

Is that what WHY wants to know?

Goodness, that was 65 years ago! Back in those days, cars didn't even have seatbelts. So I'm sure there were a lot more gruesome injuries from auto accidents. I'm suspicious of her story, thinking a car accident at age 17 was inportant. Didn't she grow up, get more of an education, have a spouse and children and grandchildren and many more interesting adventures?
. And I'm suspicious of you, kcfa. Why would you doubt her story? If she's been telling whoppers all her life, everyone knows.

This woman sounds like a real piece of work. You should point us to her stories. I'm sure the KT'ers could tell if they're authentic or not.

Most old timers relay happy times. Wait til she hits something like the depression in her stories about herself.

Do you really want me to Zeetra? BTW, there's even a Hollywood angle to this story, which actually IS true. Her brother was Best Man when Clint Eastwood married his first wife Maggie circa 1952, and Clint (as "Clinton Eastwood, Jr.") reciprocated by being Best Man in her brother's first wedding in 1958.

So she fudges the tragic parts?? LOL. Yes, show us a sample or two.

The info on the Clint Eastwood/Harry Pendleton, Jr. (her brother) connection didn't come from her, but rather from the five Eastwood biographies that are out there. They were close high school & beyond buddies.

If you want to know "the Patricia Story", I suggest accessing & reading the "Paul C. Bragg" Wikipedia page, and particularly the cited "In The Name Of The Father", published in the Maui Times Weekly in February of 2008. The editor/author contacted me for further details on Patricia, and acknowledged my contribution at the article's end.

However I was also genuinely curious about damage from glass from anybody being ejected through an auto windshield. BTW, my husband, who was an engineer by occupation for many years, has often stated that he finds simple glass to be one of the most interesting properties in the universe.

I answered that question. You need to read it. So does your engineer DH. He can explain it to you.

Thanks WC, my husband had already explained it to me before you did. He's quite an expert on old cars & their trimmings. I doubt that there's an old-time auto museum west of the Rockies I haven't been dragged to. BTW, I can read; please try not to be so "patronizing".

Wasn't being patronizing. The follow-ups were still going on about HOW this could be. Didn't look like anyone was paying attention.

She's a real little, feisty character. So Bragg built a health empire and this woman claimed to be his daughter. When records showed that she was in fact his DIL, she said that Bragg adopted her. She was 26 when she divorced his son, and if that age is too old for adoption, then she really married her brother.

...capable of relentless self-promotion... I think this is what makes her a target of sorts. Plus she name drops a lot.

She turned out very wealthy and has a generous heart. But I wonder if she does mask the truth in order to justify her acquiring wealth, maybe illegally.

I'll need more time to read the rest, but it's a very interesting story.

Some people feel the need to enhance the truth..even when the truth is interesting in itself. I know a few people like that..you can never trust what they say because it "might" be true or it might not...

She wears no makeup except for a little lipstick. She would be about 80. When you said that I checked to see if you are in California the plastic surgery capital of the world. Just a thought-maybe she has had plastic surgery within 10 years or recently and just in case anybody notices a little scar here and there from the surgery--there is this great auto story. I have actually heard a similar story from somebody who looks pretty good for 75.

When I was in high school, an older fellow from my school was in a terrible car accident. He did go thru the windshield and his jaw and lower teeth were completely severed. They thought he was dead at the scene but he had a pulse so they took him to the hospital. I never saw him after that, I assume he was a monstrous. Of course that was back in the late 1960's. Not sure if plastic surgery was very advanced in those days. Hope this thead doesn't get much more opinions posted. If she's that old, it's no longer important to anyone but her. Let her tell her story of "almost" dying.

An accident of this sort can range from bruised scalp to a cut throat. It all depends, and folks, there are a lot of 'depends'. For one thing, many posters above are assuming they know what kind of glass was in the windshield. We don't know this. The make and model of the car was not identified. We don't know if the car was new or old at the time of the accident. We don't even know ths size of the window or its elevation in relation to the person's body. Some old time cars had small windshields so high up that a short person had trouble viewing the road. Its a fairly safe assumption there were no seat belts.

For example, the year could have been 1939 and she was in a 10 yr old car. That could have been a Model A Ford. I'm not sure what kind of glass the Model A had, (I owned one a long time ago) but I do not believe it was 'safety glass', the type that is two pieces of glass laminated together with a polymer film.

Laminated safety glass is supposed to be heat treated in such a manner so that on impact, it shatters into little bits and does not produce long shards. The polymer film holds things together, stretches, and reduces (not prevents in all cases) the possibility of sticking a head all the way through and getting cuts in bad places. Well, that's what its supposed to do - t'aint always so.

In 1965, the company I worked for occupied a new office building and the rear glass doors were supposed to have been treated to break into tiny bits. One evening, a friend of mine was leaving the building with a group when someone distracted him. He turned and kept up a brisk pace. He thought the door was held open by the fellow in front of him, It wasn't. He turned his head forward just in time to bang into the glass. It broke. Large shards of glass, some 2 to 3 ft long, fell around him. Miracously, he got only a bump on the head and a small cut with shards of glass surrounding him. Wasn't supposed to happen, BUT IT DID. He was one lucky fellow. Naturally, there followed an investigation with the supplier, installer, and insurnace company with a lot of finger-pointing. There was a goof-up somewhere.

So, was it possible that she went though the windshield without a lasting facial blemish? Yeah, but the likelyhood of other scenarios are more common. From what scraps of information I got from the original post, it seems that her entire body launched through the windshield and ended up somewhere out outside of the vehicle. That is possible. I have first hand knowledge of such a case. In this case, the car went into a ditch, struck a culvert and instantly stopped. He went through the windshield flying much like Superman, and nailed a very stong post. He never came out of the coma and died weeks later.

Okay, not that it matters to anyone but tempered (heat treated) glass and laminated glass are two completely different things. There is no such thing as heat treated laminated glass. It is either one or the other.

Arizona law says that any glass window or door within 18 inches of the floor, has to be tempered (heat treated) glass. Tempered is the glass that breaks into thousands of small pieces. If in doubt, all tempered glass has a "bug" in the lower right hand corner. The door your friend walked through was obviously NOT tempered and depending on where he lived, in 1965, it probably wasn't a law yet. I had a friend in second grade (1967) who did the same thing and was killed.

All, or most, auto door glasses and backglasses are tempered (some can be laminated). Windshields are laminated (with the film in between two pieces of glass).

As to the original question, anything is possible but to many unknowns to answer.

Makes me wonder what happened to the driver???

The story is part of "Patricia Remembers Her Friend Steve Jobs" with photos of the two of them at Bragg.com, currently up. I had heard & read lots of stories about her & her "father", but never ran across that auto accident story before.