When looking up information about former driver Bill Dennis, I came upon several references crediting Dr. Jerry Punch with saving Bill's life at Daytona in 1982. We see Jerry on the ESPN telecasts doing his pit road duties, but many don't know of his having served as head of emergency services at the hospital near Daytona Speedway and the countless times he interacted in a miraculous fashion with injured drivers and continues to do so when the situation demands it. In this time of mourning following the loss of Dan Wheldon, I think it's a good time to tip the hat to the mostly unsung folks like Jerry who have made a positive difference in the sport we love. As fate would have it, the Atlanta paper recently did a feature story about Jerry and I dug up a very interesting piece about Jerry literally bringing Bill Dennis back from the dead. We've been very fortunate to haveJerry Punch on our sidelines.
Langley To Honor Dead (almost) Racer
May 13, 1989
By AL PEARCE Staff Writer
HAMPTON, Va. Langley Raceway will honor a man tonight who died seven years ago.
Bill Dennis, alive and smiling, will be here as friends, family and fans recognize his sparkling racing career on Bill Dennis Night.
Dennis hasn't raced since a horrific crash at Daytona Beach in February of 1982. At 53 and still somewhat bothered by the incident, it's doubtful he ever will.
Moments after the head-on crash he had an "over-and-back" experience in which he clearly saw his body drifting toward a brilliant white light.
Given up for dead by a member of the speedway's rescue squad, he was brought back by two doctors in the infield hospital.
THE ACCIDENT happened on Feb. 7, 1982 as Dennis attempted to qualify an Eddie Falk-owned Pontiac for the Daytona 500.
He was early into his qualifying run when the rear of the car abruptly pranced to the right, out of his control. As the back of the car kicked out, its nose aimed left, down the steep banking and onto the flat portion of the track.
"It started like a routine run," Dennis said months later. "Nothing different from what I'd done down there thousands of other times. But when the car hit the apron and came back around to the right, there was nothing I could do."
He reacted correctly by steering right, into the spin. But it was too little too late. The car snapped around and went directly into the concrete wall at 180 miles an hour.
"I knew I was going to die," Dennis said. "I'd seen people killed in wrecks not nearly that bad, so I knew I was in deep trouble. I hit the (engine) kill switch and jammed the brake pedal so hard it broke my foot.
"Then I got my best hold on the steering wheel."
Barely two seconds had elapsed between the time the car broke loose and its impact on the wall.
THE TRADEMARK DAYTONA, USA is painted in two-foot-high letters along the frontstretch wall of the speedway. The D in DAYTONA was the last thing Dennis remembered seeing before the impact.
Seconds later, he saw himself dead - if only for a few mimutes.
At first, he felt nothing, just silent darkness. Then Dennis saw a brilliant light, then his body drifting upward, through billowing white clouds, toward the light.
After watching himself try unsuccessfully to move his arms and legs, darkness quickly enveloped him again.
To this day he believes he was dead. Indeed, one of the ambulance attendants who rushed him to the track hospital told attending physicians that their patient already had expired.
"HE DIDN`T HAVE any vital signs of life," said Dr. Jerry Punch, one of two physicians on duty that morning. "There was no pulse, he wasn't breathing and he had that cold, clammy feel. It looked very bleak."
Punch and Dr. A.J. Adessa worked on Dennis for several minutes, administering oxygen and cardiopulmonary resusitation.
"Suddenly, Bill gasped and his eyes shot open," Punch recalled. "He had the most horrified look on his face, like he'd seen a ghost. He couldn't breathe well, he couldn't speak and he couldn't move. He was totally disoriented."
Dennis' larnyx was crushed and his voicebox badly damaged. His shoulder was dislocated, his foot broken and he had suffered severe cuts, bruises and internal injuries.
He spent two weeks in a Daytona Beach hospital, then 10 more days in a Richmond hospital. Today, the only outward lingering sign of the ordeal is his inability to speak much above a whisper.
THE NEWS STUNNED race fans in the Richmond area, the driver's life-long home. When a radio station reported that Dennis was dead, nephew Carroll Harris was so distraught he almost wrecked his truck in his dash home.
Keith Dennis was an 18-year-old student at James Madison University. He rushed home to join his mother, sister and grandmother on a chartered jet to his father's bedside. Ricky Dennis, 21, had gone to Speed Week with his father.
"Every flight from Richmond was booked that day, so I rented a Lear," Theresa Dennis, his daughter, said. "I didn't think about anything except getting to the hospital. I didn't think about the cost ($4,500), I thought about the people I love."
Despite divorcing in 1974, Nancy and Bill Dennis had remained good friends. A registered nurse, she knew something was terribly wrong when a colleague said she had a call from doctor in Daytona Beach.
"I didn't know if it was Ricky or Bill," she said. "I just knew they wouldn't be calling me from down there if it wasn't bad."
She prayed that day for her ex-husband to give up racing. "He's had a great career, a great life," she said at the time. "He's won a lot of races and a lot of championships. He doesn't have anything to prove."
She knew better, though. "I know he won't get out of racing," she said. "It's still too important to him."
Dennis tried to race again, but NASCAR said no. They cited his difficulty breathing and speaking. Before he was grounded, though, he was adamant about racing again.
"I'll be racing again by the middle of this summer," he said in April of 1982. "I decided when I was in the hospital that if I was physically able, I'd get back in a race car as soon as I could.
"I'm not trying to prove anything to anybody or to myself," he added. "I've raced for 25 years and I know what I can do. I don't have to prove I'm not scared. Racing is my life and I'm not ready to quit."
Then he added,"I'm not ready to die, either, I'll tell you that."
BILL DENNIS
Began racing: 1958 at Moore's Field in Richmond. Won his first-ever start after subbing for driver who didn't show up for a Modified race.
Honors: 1970 NASCAR Rookie of the Year.
Titles: 1975-76-79 Virginia Sportsman Champion; 1974-75-76-79 Southside Speedway Sportsman Champion; Top 10 in Sportsman national standings seven times between 1973-81.
Highlights: Won Daytona Sportsman 300 in 1972-73-74 for car owner Junie Donlavey
No punchline: Veteran reporter, doctor shares harrowing stories
September 7, 2011 3:45 pm
By Rick Minter
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Dr. Jerry Punch, veteran ESPN reporter, makes his living telling other people's stories. But his own stories may be the best of all.
As a young man, he raced stock cars at Hickory Motor Speedway near his hometown of Newton, N.C., running against some of the best drivers ever to sit behind a steering wheel.
At North Carolina State University, he had a brief stint as a walk-on back-up quarterback on a team coached by Lou Holtz. He went on to become an emergency room physician, then a radio and TV reporter covering NASCAR races as well as college football games.
His medical training has been the difference in life and death for several drivers who crashed in races Punch was covering. He saved Rusty Wallace after a crash during practice at Bristol Motor Speedway and he and another doctor saved Bill Dennis after a Daytona wreck.
Punch also is credited with saving the life of ARCA driver Don Marmor, who crashed at Atlanta in 1988. Punch was on the Turn One side of pit road of the track, then under its original configuration, when another car veered into Marmor's path as he exited Turn Four, sending him head-on into the blunt-end of pit wall. Tires from an Earth mover had been placed there to absorb impact, but Marmor's car took a savage hit anyway.
Since the ARCA broadcast wasn't live, Punch started walking down pit road during the red-flag period.
"I got about midway down pit road and I see an ARCA official," said Punch. "I asked him, Hey, what happened?'"
"He said, A boy hit the pit road wall head-on. He's gone.'"
"I said, What?'"
"He said, He's gone.'"
"I took off running."
When Punch, a trauma specialist, arrived at the car, there was a paramedic already in the right side of the car. Punch climbed through the windshield opening.
"The paramedic recognized me and said, Doc, it's a bad deal,'" said Punch.
He was right. One quick look told Punch that Marmor was unconscious and had multiple broken bones. The steering wheel was impaled in his chest and he was barely breathing.
Punch's first move was to get an airway opened. Then he had to make the risky move of inserting a large IV into Marmor's heart before pulling the steering wheel away from his chest.
"Putting a line to feed a catheter into the heart of a guy sitting in a race car is risky, but you're dealing with life and death," said Punch.
Eventually, Punch and the paramedics got Marmor out of the car and to the care center.
Punch directed Marmor's care and talked to him throughout, knowing that Marmor likely wasn't hearing a thing he said.
"I was giving orders and talking to him in his ear: You have broken extremities. You're out of the car,'" Punch said, adding that he received great assistance from the Atlanta South crew on the scene that Saturday morning.
Marmor spent weeks in the hospital, but he survived. He never raced again and today works as a body and fender repairman in his hometown of Northlake, Ill.
"I'm very lucky that Jerry Punch was working the race that day," Marmor said by phone last week. "He got my heart going. It's because of him that I'm still around.
"I've got some imperfections, but I can live with them."
Marmor said he ran into Punch years later and thanked him.
"He just said, No problem,'" said Marmor.
It also was at Atlanta that Punch was involved in an incident that led to TV pit reporters wearing firesuits.
He was covering a pit stop by Richard Petty in a 1989 race, when the car backfired and ignited spilled gasoline. The crew radioed Petty to take off, but the gas man and the contents of his spilled can were on fire. Punch, his assistant Nelson Crozier and a Petty crewman managed to wrap the gas man in a blanket and extinguish the flames.
Then Punch returned to his reporting duties.
But not all of Punch's Atlanta stories involve life and death situations.
It was at Atlanta in 1982 that Punch, then a radio reporter, did his first TV broadcast.
And it was at the season finale at Atlanta in 1992 when Punch made one of his most memorable calls.
He was working Alan Kulwicki's pits when Kulwicki beat Bill Elliott for the championship by leading one more lap than Elliott in what many describe as NASCAR's greatest race. It also was the final drive for Richard Petty.
Just after the finish, the cameras turned on Punch, who was standing by Kulwicki's car.
"The producer said to say something profound," said Punch. "I don't remember what I said, but I remember how emotional it was to see Alan Kulwicki, the ultimate underdog, climb out of his car and do the interview."
"Then I turn right and I'm feeding the PA and national TV and I tell everybody, Direct your attention to the garage area. For the final time, the King, Richard Petty, is going to come out and make one ceremonial lap.'"
"I walked down pit road. Richard's in tears. I'm in tears. I'll never forget that 1992 race ... Atlanta is a very special place."
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"Any Day is Good for Stock Car Racing"
updated by @dave-fulton: 12/10/19 05:54:09PM
