With two Teslas parked in the driveway, the single-family home of Dharmesh Patel and his wife Neha was among the most conspicuous in their quiet neighbourhood of Lomay Place in Pasadena, California.
Now, the neighbourhood has been left shocked by reports that Dharmesh Patel, 41, deliberately drove his Tesla off a cliff with his wife and two children inside on Monday morning.
The Indian-origin physician was booked on attempted murder and child abuse charges and arrested at Stanford Hospital, where he is receiving treatment for his injuries. He and his family, including a four-year-old son and seven-year-old daughter, miraculously survived the 250-foot drop off Devil’s Slide, a dangerous and rocky area known for its fatal car wrecks.
His shocked neighbours say they had no inkling of anything amiss in the seemingly perfect Patel family.
“They’re a beautiful, idyllic family, no indication of issues,” Roger Newmark, who lived in the same block as the Patels, told The Los Angeles Times. “It’s so strange because he is a great guy. Maybe it was a moment of insanity.”
Newmark said the Patels gave every appearance of a happy nuclear family since they moved into the street five years ago. A radiologist who worked at Providence Holy Cross Medical Center, Patel was often spotted playing with his children outside their home.
His wife, Neha Patel, started neighbourhood text message groups and documented her family’s life on social media.
“He’s just so present,” said Sarah Walker, another neighbour who remembers Dharmesh as someone who was “always happy and ready to talk.”
On Christmas eve, just a few days before he drove his family off a cliff in a Tesla, Patel had gifted a poinsettia plant to his next-door neighbours in what is now just one of many instances that point to how ‘normal’ the family appeared.
News of his act and subsequent arrest has sent shockwaves through the neighbourhood. “Really I can't believe it. No one can believe it. They felt like newlyweds. The way they interact and look at each other, it just felt like they should be together,” Walker said.
Rescuing Patel and his family after the crash was a dangerous operation that involved firefighters rappelling down the cliff. All four occupants of the car were conscious and alert when rescuers arrived.
Police said it was “very, very rare” for people to survive such a fall.
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