Accident leading to George S. Patton's injury

On December 9, 1945, Major General Hobart Gay invited George S. Patton on a pheasant hunting trip near Speyer, Germany, to lift his spirits. During the trip, Patton noted the derelict cars along the side of the road and remarked on the wastefulness of war. Moments later, the 1938 Cadillac limousine driven by PFC Horace Woodring collided with an American army truck driven by T/5 Robert L. Thompson. Patton's regular driver, Sgt. Francis 'Jeep' Sanza, had left the Army in November 1945. While others were only slightly injured, Patton hit his head on the glass partition separating the front and back seats, resulting in a gash to the head and complaints of paralysis and breathing difficulties. He was taken to a hospital in Heidelberg, where he was diagnosed with a compression fracture and dislocation of the cervical third and fourth vertebrae, leading to a broken neck and cervical spinal cord injury that rendered him paralyzed from the neck down.