By Scott Wong

Ethel Kunnes’ seat belt may have saved her life, but it was the help of strangers that restored her faith in humanity.

Now, after more than two weeks of recovering from a nearly fatal car accident, Kunnes has begun the search for the motorists who came to her rescue, so that she can personally say thank you.

On Nov. 10, shortly before 4 p.m., Kunnes found herself dangling sideways in her car in excruciating pain with her seatbelt deeply pressing into one, maybe two broken ribs.

She had been on the way to her 8-year-old grandson Andrew’s ballet and tap dance recital, but never made it.

A red-light runner broadsided the passenger side of her teal Volvo S70 just as she turned left onto the Highway 85 ramp from West Fremont Avenue in Sunnyvale, totaling the car and flipping it on its side, spraying the pavement and Kunnes with shattered glass.

“Thank God I didn’t have a passenger,” said the 72-year-old Los Altos resident. “They wouldn’t have survived.”

Kunnes survived with the help of Volvo’s safety features, but it was the physical and moral support of stopping motorists that made a deep impression on her.

Kunnes, who could wiggle her fingers and toes but was unable to free herself from the safety belt, told other motorists who had stopped to flip the car on its wheels in order to relieve pressure from her ribs.

“Two men tried and couldn’t do it,” she said. “I didn’t know who they were.”

But in a heroic act, others jumped in to help them, garnering enough manpower to push the car right side up. Sunnyvale police and an ambulance arrived shortly thereafter, whisking Kunnes away from the accident scene to the trauma center at Stanford University Hospital.

Kunnes said she never had the chance to thank her rescuers personally.

“I can’t identify them by name but I think they were kind and considerate people,” she said. “They called the police, the ambulance, they straightened the car and they were right there comforting me.”

“Their consideration and kindness toward others — it restored my faith in mankind,” she added.

Beside one broken rib, Kunnes did not have any other detectable internal injuries and was released the following day from the hospital.

And Andrew has promised his grandmother a private dance recital.

To reach Ethel Kunnes, please contact Scott Wong at the Town Crier at 948-9000 ext. 317 or by e-mail at