“Choke and Die” – NASCAR Legend Ignored Richard Petty’s Advice & It Led to a Catastrophic Hazard Once

Back in 1988, NASCAR driver Rusty Wallace endured a scary wreck. By the time the car finished flipping, its roof was totaled, and it was impossible to remove the window net. Wallace himself was in no better shape because he was wearing an open-face helmet and his face was bloody.

ESPN’s Dr. Jerry Punch was one of the first people on the scene, and he tried to clear Wallace’s airway. What scared him and the track workers was that the driver was not breathing for a while. Eventually, he began breathing on his own.

Apparently, this inability to breathe was pretty much his own fault. Speaking at the Hall of Fame ceremony in 2013, Rusty Wallace came clean about the incident. He said, “The problem started kind of before I got in the car. You know where I’m going with this story, don’t you? I was there, and I grabbed a ham sandwich. Made it up real quick and I wolfed that baby down and I took that.”

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He received a warning from Richard Petty before the practice session

Obviously, he must have had some hunger pangs, but he had barely any time left before hopping back in the car. That was why he stuffed the whole thing in his mouth and tried to finish it quickly. Unfortunately, the crash happened, and the mouthful got lodged in his throat. Prior to his run, he got a warning from ‘The King‘ himself, but he foolishly ignored it.

Wallace continued, “Richard Petty comes over to me, said ‘Hey kid, what are you doing?’ I said I’m having a sandwich, King. He goes, ‘You can’t do that before you go and practice’. I said ‘What do you mean?’. He said, ‘Don’t you know, any smart race car driver knows you can’t have a sandwich and jump right onto the racetrack and go practice. If you wreck, that thing could get clogged up in your esophagus and you can choke and die!'”

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Needless to say, Rusty Wallace learned his lesson, though it gave his team a headache. This was because they had to prepare a spare car. Fortunately, he was considerate enough to send notes from the hospital on how to set up the spare car to his liking.