Three 16-year-olds were injured when their sedan flipped on a sharp curve and tumbled into a ravine off U.S. 36 in Boulder County this afternoon.
The driver was attempting a drag-racing maneuver called a drift, according to the Colorado State Patrol. A drift involves a fast-moving driver slamming on his brake and skidding his car sideways around a sharp curve.
In this case, the driver went over the guard rail backwards and flipped two and half times down a 200-foot embankment.
“He apparently didn’t do it very well,” Trooper Gilbert Mares said of the driver’s attempted drift.
All three teens were wearing seat belts, but the driver was airlifted to St. Anthony’s Hospital in Denver with serious injuries.
His two passengers were taken by ambulance to Longmont United Hospital with minor to moderate injuries, Mares aid.
Though the case is still under investigation, the driver will likely be charged with reckless driving “at a minimum,” Mares said.
