I hate Tesla and traded mine in after only two months of ownership, but in no way is the lever hidden or not extremely obvious. In fact it is more obvious than the button. Several times I had passengers try to use the manual lever, which doesn’t lower the window when used. After the second person did it, moving forward I told every person who hadn’t been in my car before to use the button before getting out. Was one of the many reasons I traded it in.
I have no idea. I wasn’t there and didn’t even know about it until right now. Door could have been jammed shut after the accident like any other door that firefighters keep their jaws of life for.