The first car crash I remember knowing about happened when I was still quite young, maybe ten years old. A man somehow drove off the road and his car landed upside down in the creek, quite near our house. There was a young boy in the car with him, and the boy was found alive in the trunk; somehow upon impact he had gotten thrown back there and did not drown. The driver, who was his dad or grandfather, died at the scene.
The boy was a year or two older than I was, and we ended up at the same high school. He was a talented musician, and eventually developed his own band. They played at my 35th class reunion. Our old band director, long since retired, was there for the occasion and seemed so pleased with what that former student of his had accomplished.
It would have been very sad if the boy had drowned, and I'm very glad he survived. His musical talent is an added bonus. I never knew him well, so I never asked him how he felt about surviving that accident. I don't know whether it gave him a different perspective on life than most youngsters have.