Also with his descriptive stlye and the words he uses it helps build up the excitement of what is going to happen next. Word choice is the key to building the readers anticipation and I believe he does it quite well. Now, while he doesn't actually specificy this, Eric implies that Crichton also uses sentence pace to build the ancipation he feels. The other thing I noticed in Crichton's writing is how he dragged out certain scenes. In the second paragraph one can see that he drags out the whole car falling from the tyrannosaur's jaw's by using hypens to depict diffent aspects of the scene.
Eric presents is that it allows others to disagree and modify our understanding.
You're right about this passage being desciptive and exciting. It is repetitive and detracts from the actual craziness of the whole situation. I think doing so would have given the reader a better sense of how horrifying the event was, instead of playing it down by using the same word so often. For Erin, the passage could be more exciting if C. had chosen to vary the verb. That makes a strong analysis.