The death of professional race car driver and reality TV personality, Jessi Combs has been a total shock to fans and friends over the past days, including her Mythbusters co-star, Adam Savage who is detailing his disbelief and heartbreak over the immense loss.
In an interview with Entertainment Tonight, Savage admits the news of Combs fatally crashing her jet car in an effort to break a land-speed record while in the Alvord Desert is a “real shock.”
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“My heart goes out to her family and friends and her boyfriend,” Savage said in the interview. “What they’re going through must be absolutely awful right now.”
Savage went on to share how much of a blessing Combs was to him, the Mythbusters family and fans after she stepped in for Season 7 following Kari Bryon’s maternity leave.
“I will tell you that Mythbusters fans are very rabid fans,” he said. “They love their Mythbusters and they wanted it exactly the way they wanted it. So when Kari took a maternity leave and we had to find someone to fill her shoes, we were afraid that would be a losing game, that nobody would accept anyone but Kari.”
He adds that when Combs stepped in with her “fundamentally different personality” and “different approach to the show,” it was then that the fans fell in love with her.
“[They] accepted her as a member of our wonderful family, and that is no small feat,” he said.
“She achieved tremendous success in a club that was very much a boys club and she held her own tremendously and including all of that, she was also a tremendous science communicator. She shared her knowledge, she shared her enthusiasm, she shared her love on what she did with the world and that is super inspiring,” he said.
“I think that is an excellent legacy to leave. Get out of the way of young people who are interested in science and the STEM fields, because all children are natural scientists and engineers,” he said.
Savage issued an initial statement about her death earlier this week, echoing his sentiments about Combs, sharing how he was, “so, so sad.”
Combs was killed after attempting to break her own land-speed record. According to Popular Mechanics, She was piloting her jet-powered land-speed car in the Alvord Desert, just south of Burns, Oregon, when the accident occurred at around 4 p.m. local time. Combs’ death was announced via Instagram by team member, Terry Madden, who said the 39-year-old died in a “horrific accident” and that every attempt was made to save her.
Combs was best known for appearing in TV shows such as Mythbusters, All Girls Garage, Xtreme 4×4, Overhaulin’, Truck U, and Two Guys Garage.
Photo credit: Frederick M. Brown/Getty Images
