CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- Dick Brenner became the face of one of NASCAR's biggest disasters when a pedestrian bridge collapsed at then-Lowe's Motor Speedway on May 20, 2000, injuring him and over 100 others.
Brenner had gone to a race at what was Lowe's Motor Speedway in 2000. He was among the first on the new pedestrian walkway when it collapsed crushing his legs and shattering his pelvis.
Brenner, a retired Vice President of Human Resources in the fuel industry, died Friday at Novant Health Presbyterian Medical Center in Charlotte. He was 75.
"I don't remember hitting. I do remember falling 24 feet and that elevator feeling in your stomach," he told NBC Charlotte in 2010, a decade after the accident happened. "When I woke up I was kind of covered up with people."
At total of 107 people were hurt -- Brenner was the worst among them.
He remembers asking his wife just how bad it was right before going in for what would be the first of a dozen surgeries right after the accident.
Then I said, 'Will I ever walk again? She said, 'Of course.' We didn't know it was with a prosthesis, Brenner said.
In his past life Brenner called the shots. He was a big shot -- the president of human resources at Texaco. He managed 450 people and a $29 million budget. He and his wife had just retired to their dream home in Davidson when the walkway collapsed.
"I didn't figure coming down here to retire I'd wind up losing a leg and being unable to walk, but it happens," he said.
Brenner survived by his Eileen Brenner; a son, Richard Charles Brenner and his wife Krista of Half Moon Bay, Calif.; a daughter, Caroline Payne and her husband Glen of Hermosa Beach, Calif.; a sister Jacklyn Bresson as well as three grandchildren.
A private service will be held at James Funeral Home of Huntersville.
