Man Run Over by Erratic Driver Released

Today: May 27, 2005 at 18:26:00 PDT

LOS ANGELES (AP) - An aspiring rapper who survived a terrifying accident in which he was run over by a speeding car left the hospital Friday, and was already plotting how to spin his 15 minutes of fame into a rap career. Among his ideas: a rap CD titled "Mow Me Down."

"I'm going to make a song coming from this, from him mowing me down," Tiwan Barton, 30, said at a news conference at California Hospital Medical Center. "This is not going to hold me down. I'm going to keep doing my shows, I'm going to keep making my CD."

Barton suffered only minor injuries from Wednesday's accident, which was captured by a bystander's home video and has been played repeatedly on television for two days.

The video shows a 2004 Chevy Malibu rear-ending the car Barton was in, then accelerating violently against the vehicle until a cloud of smoke billows from its tires.

Barton got out of the car, but the driver of the Malibu veered onto a lawn and knocked him down. Run over by both front and rear tires, Barton appears to roll like a rag doll until he is spit from under the car and it crashes into a nearby porch.

Police arrested the driver, 56-year-old Duane Leon Porter, on a felony charge of driving under the influence.

On Friday, Barton joked and smiled - and even dropped a few rhymes - as he answered questions about the terrifying moments.

Barton said immediately after the accident, he couldn't feel his legs - but now he is on painkillers to quell the ache of the burns. Doctors say he was likely burned by friction from the car tires on his skin.

"My pain is there and it attacks me a little bit, but other than that I only have bruises," he said. "I figure I've got angels walking with me. That's the only way I escaped it."