Caught on camera: Father and young son recount deadly crash with high-speed driver

HUNTINGTON BEACH, Calif. (KCAL/KCBS) – A California man is clinging to moments with his two sons, knowing how close he came to losing everything in an instant.

“Every time I replay that moment, and I think that is just the million times I am going to replay it, probably every time I get in my car,” Mark Ahrens said.

The moment Ahrens is talking about is when a high-speed driver slammed into his car at the intersection of Heil Avenue and Goldenwest Street in Huntington Beach on Tuesday afternoon.

Dash camera video of the collision gives a sense of the horrific crash, which Huntington Beach police said left one man dead and three others hospitalized.

An approaching car speeds through the intersection at a high rate of speed and hits a Tesla head-on.

Ahrens said he was singing Christmas carols in the car with his son moments before impact.

“The light turned green, and my memory is that we didn’t move at all and I just had two or three seconds,” Ahrens said. “I saw a car zooming through and just instantly, my brain told me, ‘This is going to be a big impact.’”

Good Samaritans rushed over and pulled Ahrens and his son safely out of the car.

“I check my son to make sure he is OK and I was just shocked that he was looking completely normal,” Ahrens remembered. “Completely normal, I couldn’t believe it.”

Paramedics took Ahrens and his son, Malcolm, to the hospital.

Ahrens was cut in the crash, but his injuries were not serious. Malcolm walked away unharmed, which is a huge relief to his older brother.

The family is now holding on to each other a little tighter, grateful and aware of how quickly everything can change.

“I hope I have a long life ahead of me, but I have had an amazing life, but you want your kids to have a long life, too,” Ahrens said.

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