Apache2 status when server overloaded

How can I check the status of apache2 when it is overloaded? That is, when it does not respond to the HTTP requests?

apache2ctl status is basically a wget on the status page. I need something that works in the command line without requesting that page.

I'm aware of two methods you may find useful:

1) mod_backdoor specifies a special thread and listening socket that allows you to hit /server-status when all the normal threads are tied up (should find it easily in a web search)

http://people.apache.org/~trawick/mod_backdoor.txt http://people.apache.org/~trawick/mod_backdoor.c

2) perl can parse the apache scoreboard if you let it use an on-disk scoreboard (ScoreBoardFile)

http://search.cpan.org/~opi/Apache2-ScoreBoardFile-0.01/lib/Apache2/ScoreBoardFile.pm