Man who suffered medical episode while driving Tesla on South Eastern Freeway speaks of how car saved him

A man who had a seizure while driving at speed on the South Eastern Freeway has told how the Tesla’s autopilot feature saved his life. See the incredible vision.

A man who had a seizure and veered across the downtrack and median strip of the South Eastern Freeway reckons his new Tesla might have saved his life.

With the vehicle miraculously avoiding oncoming traffic on the uptrack, bouncing off a cable fence and dodging cars a second time, the 67-year-old man has spoken exclusively of the terrifying incident for the first time.

Dashcam footage captures the moment an out of control Tesla nearly hit multiple cars on the South Eastern Freeway. Picture: 7NEWS

The man, who has asked to not be identified, was driving his five-month-old Tesla Model 3 RWD on June 18 last year when he suffered a medical episode.

His own car’s dashcam footage, and those from other vehicles at the time, show how incredibly fortunate he was.

The footage shows the car veering from the left lane of the downtrack, across the right line and up and across the wide grassed median to the wrong side of the road.

It then crosses two lanes, avoiding being smashed by oncoming traffic by a fraction of a second, before ricocheting off the fence.

It somehow bounces back across the uptrack, again just missing fast-moving traffic, then goes right back across the median before finally coming to a stop by another fence.

Dashcam footage captures the moment an out of control Tesla nearly hit multiple cars on the South Eastern Freeway. Picture: 7NEWS

“I felt a tingling in my head and woke up in an ambulance,” the man said.

“An hour or so after arriving at the Royal Adelaide Hospital, a doctor showed me some dashcam footage on his phone of my car with ‘this is you mate!’.”

The man said that, once out of hospital, he found the “wrecked” car and downloaded the footage to show police and the RAA.

The man said he believed that the car, which had an autopilot system installed, had identified something was wrong and tried to correct the situation.

“My interpretation of the events from the video is that as I was drifting across the lanes, the warnings (from the car to me) would have been coming,” he said.

“As I reached the other track, the car registered that it was in a bad place. It does not see a cable fence as a solid fence and accelerated towards it.

“Bouncing off this, it saw a gap and accelerated across to the centre, hit the cable fence there and put the brakes on.”

The footage shows that the acceleration was what allowed the car to avoid the oncoming traffic.

“I can’t prove that the car took over. I can’t prove that it wasn’t all just me and my involuntary movements, but the luck we all had was a bit too convenient,” he said.

A Tesla veers out of control on the South Eastern Freeway, luckily avoiding oncoming traffic. Picture: Supplied

“The Tesla is capable of intervening, for better or for worse, and it seems that it had a say in the outcome.”

The man said he felt for the people who witnessed the event and thanked emergency services for their assistance.

“I can only feel sympathy for the unfortunate people scared witless by a crazy car coming towards them,” he said.

Originally published as Man who suffered medical episode while driving Tesla on South Eastern Freeway speaks of how car saved him