Sam Fisher- Crash into Rhine River

  He shifted the BMW into reverse, spun the wheel, and backed up until his rear bumper thudded into the center guardrail and his hood was pointed at the opposite guardrail. He unbuckled his seat belt.

  He shifted into drive, took a final calming breath, then jammed the accelerator to the floor.
...

  IF not for the BMW's six liter, 537 horsepower engine, Fisher's escape attempt would have ended before it started, when the car's front bumper hit the guardrail. But the engine, combined with fine German craftsmanship, was no match for the waist-high rail and the abutting suicide-prevention hurricane fencing--a bit of irony that didn't escape Fisher's attention as the BMW tore through the fence and plunged toward the river below. The drop was fifty feet, but trapped inside the car, listening to the banshee wail of the engine and watching horizon and sky and water turn to a smudge before his eyes, it might as well have been a thousand feet.

  As it had hundreds of times before, Fisher's training took over when every muscle of his body wanted to freeze up. He rolled over and threw himself over the seats and onto the floor in the back, atop his backpack. Most victims of bridge collapses die in the front seat, arms braced against the steering wheel or dashboard, every muscle in their body tensed as they stare, transfixed, at the water's surface rushing up to meet them. Whether being in the backseat would provide any great protection, he was about to find out. He took a deep breath, let it out, and commanded his body to relax.

  The BMW stopped dead, as though it had hit a brick wall, which, in terms of physics, was more true than not. From fifty feet up, the car had gained enough momentum that the water's relative solidity was equal to that of concrete. Fisher was thrown against the seats, and the seats tore free of their floor mounts and slammed into the dashboard and windshield. He felt the BMW porpoise--the hood plunging beneath the surface, then breaching again as the rear of the car slammed down. With a prolonged sputter the engine died.

  Fisher groaned, tried to push himself off the seat backs. White-hot pain arced through his chest and he gasped. Having experienced the sensation before, he knew he'd bruised a rib, perhaps more. He craned his neck and peered between the seats. The windshield was intact. He could feel the car settling lower, could see the water boiling up over the windshield and side windows. He heard the gurgle of it pouring through the nooks and crannies in the engine compartment. Water began gushing through the vents. Fisher felt a flash of panic. Words and half-formed images flashed through his mind: trapped, drowning, tomb, slow death . . . He pushed the panic back and focused. He was sinking, but he wasn't trapped, not yet at least, and he'd be damned if he was going die trapped in a BMW 7 Series at the bottom of the Rhine River.

- Conviction, Chapter 15, 16