"Short Wave Sportfishing" wrote
The brakes failed - as in F A I L E D - causing me to avoid a massive
collision by jumping a curb and heading into the pucker brush.

Then, to add insult to injury, when I restarted the engine after it
stalled out, a horrendous noise and oil smoke started to pour out from
under the hood.

Some sort of fault in the vacuum operated brake-booster?