Cat420 commented in another thread that he hoped he didn't sound arrogant at age 22, but he felt he was better able to figure out some things than people who've been "trained". My reply was essentially that if there was any arrogance in there, it'll get beat out of him soon enough anyway, because all it takes is one moment of inattention to really foul things up. I'd typed the following up, as an example, but decided not to hijack that thread with tales of my own stupidity, but it's too good (or bad, as the case may be), a story to waste. If anybody else has a story of something really stupid they've done, feel free to share it. I'd hate feeling like the only idiot here. Besides, putting it here may keep somebody else from making the same stupid mistake, and that's what the saftey forum is for. Lemme tell you what I did one day... We were on a job, and I needed to chase after a load of 15" corrugated plastic pipe, 20' lengths. For this, we wanted to hook the tagalong trailer to the dump truck. Just because of the way things were situated, it took a lot of messing around to get hooked up, and just when we finally got the trailer onto the pintle hook, something else (I don't recall what), came up. Twenty minutes later, I'm on my way, and about a mile down the road it occurred to me... I got out and looked, and sure enough, I'd never closed the hook, plugged in the lights, or connected the saftey chains. At the time, I had about 15 years of experience, and the guy helping me had about 40, so this wasn't from lack of experience. When I got back with the pipe, I told him I was firing us both.
I'll share also. When I was first starting out I worked for landscaper and he was getting some equipment that we didn't use ready to sell. We had this big old soil pulverizer that was to be hauled up by the road, the Pete was gone so I was told to pull it up with the 621 loader. I hooked the tongue to the bucket with chains and started to pull it up. We had a railroad crossing that we had to cross over, small rise up and small rise down. The pulverizer passed me in the loader in a flash and I don't know how it stopped but it was about 12" from taking out the row of employee parking. It still gives me a shudder when I think about it because it could have taken out a bunch of trucks and if anyone would have been around. Unfortunatly that wasn't the last stupid thing but I always try to be safer/smarter now.
Now this is a thread I can get into: I was leaving early for a job 2 hours drive away so it was dark when I opened the gates and backed the truck in to hook up the trailer. As I was just about to hook up my 2 year old wanders out..so I'm well distracted, take him back inside and put him back to bed. I come out and the phone rings..its the guys in the other truck, am I ready yet?. So I jump in the truck, take off and rip the electrical wires out of the plug Try to hold torch in dark so I can see the colour of the wires and wire the plug back up. Finally get going across to a site where the other truck is waiting with the excavator to put the rock breaker in the back of my truck for the trip. To do this I need to unhook the trailer out on the road. I do that then swing the truck into the access road in reverse. As I come around the front bumper clips the tools trailer where I unhooked it on the side of the road and didn't put the brakes on. I sit there, helpless, watching the tandem axle trailer rocket off down the hill in reverse, mixer and wheelbarrows bouncing up in the air, shovels going everywhere. I didn't know wether to laugh or cry:Banghead . Luckily for me the trailer ran off with the camber in the road and stopped in a chain link fence. No damage. On the other side of the road was residences, cars etc. So when your in a hurry, try slowing down and getting it right, or you'll end up in more trouble than its worth. I've got more of these....
In 45+ years I never made a mistake!!!!!!RON G:laugh :laugh :laugh
I suppose it's only right that I add to this one. I once broke a small dead tree off and it fell the wrong way and ripped to phone and cable wires off the neighbors house. Our driveway was pitched the wrong way and my dad set up pins and told me to dig it to those points. Somehow by the time I got to the pins, I had dug almost 2 feet too deep . That was 2 years ago and now I check my measurements often. My dad has some good ones from the 70's when they did work in Jersey. I honestly don't know how people didn't die from the mistakes that some of the hired help made.
I got two off the top of my head. The first on I was within 6 months 18 birthday and of working for the first company I had work for besides my dad. We where putting in a water line and had to go through a creek. The creek was 10' down from the elevation we where running our pipe at, so we had to 45 down and under the creek bed 11'. The creek banks where steep and about 15' tall. Everything went fine until we had to star going back up the other side of the creek. I had my self benched into the bank so I had enough reach, but not well enough. After getting to big of bucket of wet sand to bed the pipe and reaching out to far, over I went. I looked almost like that pic Pullpan posted of that hoe over the side of that building. Lucky for me I got my feet up against the cad to hold myself in, because I didn't have my seatbelt on and the front window was open. And yet even more luck yet I was still swinging when I went and I didn't hit our pipe layers or the pipe they where standing on. This was my last bit of luck about 6 months ago. I was pulling a water buffalo full of water chained to my backhoe, like I have done several times down a flat road. But this time the road wasn't flat in fact I was going up a 7% or 8% grade and I heard a load pop. I tuned in time to see the chain coming undone. There just happened to be no traffic right behind me, I threw it in reverse got along side the trailer and swung my boom over in behind the trailer and stopped it, before it really got going and hit all of the cars at the 4 way stop behind me.
I've done a few memorable ones - most I'd not care to admit:angel Funniest was about 10 years ago - tramming a D11 between jobs, stopped to get fueled and just kind of forgot something.......there's STILL a beautiful set of ripper marks in that road. Most memorable as a learning experience involved a homegrown towing setup. Tried using 5/16" hardware chain double wrapped around the drawpin on a 988 loader to pull a slag kettle - only problem was pulling the kettle onto the tail of the loader prior to breaking the chain.....bad idea hall of fame there:thumbsup
When I was 16, I was backfilling a 4ft trench with a PC150. I backed up and one side of the tracks went right in the trench. The rear of the machine was partly in the trench, so I couldn't swing around and boom myself out. My dad had to push me out with the 955 whileI drove it out at the same time. Needless to say, it never happened again :wink2
This is my first claim to making an opps and probably not my last. At our school's training site everyone (technican, landscaper, and operator students) digs trenchs, mock basements, or just down right big holes. The bigger holes get filled in lifts, but nothing ususally gets compacted back in (except for any roads or "grading pads" we might be actually making). That being said, this whole field is nothing but red clay, and it LOVES to hold water, so between that and lack of compaction you can get a soft spot real quick. I had three passes left before i'd graded almost the whole field, and to this point had navigated around any wet spots, when I did this...:Banghead I guess it's also a good lesson on watching for color changes in the soil too. :thumbsup -Jim
it happens sometimes
I had one just the other day- I'm a volunteer with the local EMA/Fire Dept. In my position, I have my own emergency vehicle at home, an older S-10 blazer. Took it to the pumps early one morn and filled it with diesel. (Didn't know it at the time, but someone was working on the pumps, and reinstalled the system with gas and diesel signs reversed. ) Figured out the mistake in about one minute, when the truck simply quit. Called in the shop super, who confirmed the reversal of the pump signs, then we started to figure out who else might have pumped either fuel, since the reversal. We had visions of half the cop car/highway dept vehicles/ ambulance fleet being cross-contaminated. Turns out one of the two front line, brand new, fire engines now had 20 gals of gas in a 50 gallon diesel system. To shorten the long story, we managed to cure the fire engine problem with no major mishaps, or serious damage, and after a new set of plugs, and a few other things, I've got a vehicle that now actually runs decently. Still, the pump repair guy is paying for the serious damage caused to one of the highway dept trucks, that basically blew up because of gas in the diesel system. (Now ask yorself, how many of you guys carry diesel in red cans? ) :nono
not me yellow all the way
I'll second that... Last fall I was scheduled to put in a storm water management system for a guy remodelling a doctor's office. Had to trench down the side of the existing parking lot to the back of the property where a large drywell was to be built. Went ahead and scheduled the job and set the start date. A few days prior to the start, I'm driving home from another job, and realize I forgot to place the "one-call" for the utility markout. Make the call and hurry over to the site to do the mark-out before going to my next appointment. I jump out of the truck and grab my can of marking paint. Take a few quick measurments, and get ready to mark it when I realize the paint can is clogged. Turn the can over to unclog it, and in the process manage to spray some paint, which promtly lands all over the side of a car parked in the lot...:Banghead . Cost me a couple-hundred bucks for the lady to get it buffed out...
Might as well add one to this as well...we were out patching one day and me and another guy was going ahead spraying a tack coat on the road for the asphalt. We had a 1/2 ton truck (new) with a barrel of colas and a pump on the back. On the spray wand there was a handle to shut off the spray. I noticed at one point it stopped spraying and I seen that there was a kink in the hose. Instead of shutting off the handle, then take the kink out.....you guessed it, I gave the hose a twist around and sprayed the whole side of the truck with tar and what was worse...the window was down:Banghead dam that stuff comes off hard :yup I still remember the look on my Superviors face :laugh
I pulled a couple of real boners just this winter.:thumbsup The first: We had a snowstorm,and after trucking most the day,I made it home and proceeded to plow snow.I'll usually do my driveway last,and get to the rest of them straight away.It was getting late,and I finally got everything else plowed out,and had only to do my own.I was getting tired,and cold(cuz I ain't got the enclosed cab like Squizzy do!)and was in reverse full tilt in the Bobcat,when WHAM,I smashed right into the side of my semi.I'd forgotton that I'd left it pulled ahead,as I didn't want to back all the way up flush with the pole barn,incase I needed to get it rocking back and forth if it was stuck in the snow.It doesn't help that my truck is white either.That split second of forgetfullness and inattention cost me alot.:crying The second: I live on a rural dirt road,and they(The township) take a day or so before they'll get around to plowing it.I end up plowing it with my dumptruck,just so I can get out with the semi when I need too.I'm usually careful not to get to close to the ditches when I plow so I won't get sucked in,but we'de had an 18"er,and it was hard to tell where the edges were.I had the truck scootin' along around 25mph,when the right steer suddenly dropped in the ditch.Not wanting to pay an enormous tow bill,I pushed it on the floor,tried steering left as much as possible,and was able to get it back on the road after about 50ft.What a ride that 50ft was though.I had the seat sucked up my rear,all the way to the pedistal. I'm STILL suprised it drove itself out.The plow wanting to push the front of the truck left and the momentum of 34,000lbs must have kept it moving.Whew!!
I'm sorry Jeff but I p*ssed myself laughing at that one
My worst came just the other night and is similar to Jeff's story. We got 8" of snow and I was plowing a client's driveway at 11:30 pm. She had parked her minivan in an unusual spot instead of in front of her garage as is the usual practice. While clearing the area in front of the garage, I backed into the minivan with my truck which sports a flatbed. I was barely going 5mph and was a foot from coming to a complete stop, but I tapped the rear quarter panel of the minivan and stoved it in. The force blew both side windows out, the back of my truck is now covered with tiny pieces of privacy glass. Turned out to be $3300 in damage. Fortunately this is my first claim in 8 years, so it shouldn't hurt too bad. The customer is being understanding too, so it's working out OK, but I sure did feel stupid when it happened.:beatsme
Thank god for insurance, as long as they don't drop ya:cryin I to backed into my wife's new trailblazer this year plowing $2000. No insurance claims because I just changed companies and would hate to put in claim so soon, I would have no insurance. Then backed into a truck in lot I was plowing at 6 am about a week ago when he pulled behind just after I made a pass and I didin't see him. I have to use mirrors only because of salter and fuel tank in back. Still waiting for that bill. Then my snowmobile crapped out 4 miles in the woods two days ago. I have lots of storys to tell. Lets just say that I don't win at poker with my freinds every week. I do have some bad luck. Cup is 1/2 full !! John
Greetings everyone. New to the forum here, been over at the LTS forum for about 6 or 8 months now. I had to share this gem with everyone.. even though it has little to do with the heavy equipment side of things, still qualifies on my Top 10 stupid moments. About a year ago, late at night, around midnight or so, me and the little woman were in my truck leaving the local Wal-Mart. I passed a large Ryder moving van that was out in the boonies of the lot. Right next to it was a small car.. as I glanced over to the right, I saw two people in the back seat.. :bouncegri Well I stopped a few feet past and started to back up real slow to see if they were doin what I think thought they were doin.. Next thing. Smash. Right into the front end of the moving truck. A tweaked bumper and cracked passenger taillight was my reward, along with a hefty bill to fix the front bumper and replace the steering components I snapped when I hit the front wheel of the truck. Just goes to show.. the thought of a nude female will time and time again suck all the intelligence right out of a man. :Banghead
Hee-hee!!:bouncegri Well,did they atleast get to finish up?? Welcome to the forum fellow Minnesotan!!
I've had accidents for less.
Well,if we're allowed to fess up to non heavy equipment boo-boo's,I'll add this one.(although the securing load part would apply to HE) When I was 16 my dad bought an Arctic Cat El-tigre snowmobile.He asked me too pick it up for him,since he had to work,and I had a Toyota flatbed pick-up. I picked it up,but decided it didn't need to be strapped down,I'd just set the little parking brake lever(and I knew EVERYTHING when I was 16,you just had too ask me!)I drove home like I always did,and turned the corners like I always did,as fast as you could go without tipping over,when whoosh the sled slid off the side off the bed,and rolled several times,flinging windshield,hood,and handlebar pieces with every flip,until it ended up in the ditch. I then loaded it back up,piece by piece,and brought it home.My old man was not impressed.He hadn't even ridden the sled once,and it already looked like it went through a car crusher.Luckily he was way more understanding than I had any right to expect.
...couldn't even make somethin' up..........and what did the little woman have to say?
Maybe we can get this one going again as I am sure there are lots of storys(confessions) out there. Here is a story that happened to one of my co-workers.... We were laying down asphalt and I was leveling it with the grader. We rented a double drum walk behind roller. My co-worker was rolling on the edge of the mat that was about 6 inches thick. He lost control and the roller flipped over in the ditch. Of course we all had a good laugh (you would have to know this guy) then we lifted it out of the ditch with the backhoe. A few dents but otherwise okay. Now you would think that this would be a learning experience for this guy right? Nope! fired her back up and rolled the exact same place and....you guessed it ..over she went again! The whole crew went down on all fours from laughing so hard with the exception of the Supervisor! So...we picked it out of the ditch again and loaded it onto the Supervisors pickup as it never survived the second flip unscathed. The Supervisor was in a hurry to get it back and get another one so that we could finish the job. He forgot to block the drums on each end...took off fast and the roller shot off the back, hit the road and into the ditch again!! The poor roller was tore all to pieces. I think this had to be the most comical thing that I have ever experienced on a job site :laugh
That one takes the cake..:laugh I'd have like to have seen the hire guy's face when the sup get the roller back
That's going to be a tough one too top,alright!!:bouncegri
X3:notworthy :roll
I don't intend to top that one, but my dad was telling me about this one the other day. Years ago when he drove trucks, they sent him to go somewhere with the dump truck and trailer. The problem was that the ramps got left down and were shooting sparks everywhere. One of the guys went running between houses and caught him about half way around the block. The helper then proceeded to go to the back and attempt to pick up the now very hot ramps. Needless to say his hands hurt for a while.
I was reminded while reading other post concerning safety and the unintentional movement of equipment,about a situation that happened to me on my backhoe,which would fit into this post. It was in the spring,and I'd put the battery back in,and was getting the backhoe ready for summer.I'd parked it fairly close to the wall in front inside the barn,and after starting and warming up a few minutes I decided I'd put it in gear,and back it out.When I tried to put it into reverse it would just grind.The clutch doesn't seem to release correctly after sittting for an extented period,for some reason.It's a two stage clutch,and I'm not up on the principles of it's design,but it is slow to disengage initially,but after will work normally until sitting for months again. I decided I'd shut it down,apply the brakes,put it in gear,and restart while in gear with the clutch depressed to break it free.I made the mistake of putting it in first gear instead of reverse(as if that was my only mistake),and when it started it moved forward far enough to put the front end nearly through the wall,before the clutch finally let go.I ended up replacing a few studs,and straightening some sheet metal before it was over. Obviously there are plenty of oversights I made that led to this(maintenance,safety)and I'm aware of that.It still doesn't stop the fact that people do stupid things,myself included.
I had one this winter (if you can call it that) with my truck and plow. I was readjusting plow becuase blade was sinking in mud. Got it hooked up and was trying to posistion it so I could just pull into it. Anyway I am in and out of truck raising and lowering to make sure it is right (driveway not the flatest). Well I get out forget to put in park:Banghead :Banghead It is still in reverse I go to plow and raise it with manifold switch (blizzard) and as soon as it is up off ground there goes truck like bat out of hell backwards. I run jump in truck slam on brake and becuase I am standing in door as truck stops dead I fall on ground and truck shoots back again even faster. I need to duck so as to not get hit by door then plow. Well she goes off edge of driveway into a whole in woods I had made to put a crap truck I have. But when made hole it was to muddy for it. Anyway she goes in there and by pure luck door missed the phone poll that was there. When she came to rest door was actually past where pole (If you drew a line) is. Had to get tow truck up to pull me out. Only damage was to my pride. I actually laughed. I quess it's true small things amuse small minds. But then again if I couldn't luagh at my dumb mistakes I would always be crying becuase I seem to make a few.
I have another one that I can share, seeing we are talking about backhoes. I am going to pick on my buddy again (same guy that flipped the roller). I was trying to teach him how to operate a backhoe but you know some people just can't seem to catch on no matter how hard you try. This was in the winter and we had a frozen culvert (under the road) and water was backed up and running into a residents basement. The lower end of the culvert had to be cleaned out so we could get the steamer into the pipe to unthaw it. My buddy thought this would be a good place to show his stuff. Keep in mind that it was approx. 8 to 10 feet from the top of the road to bottom of the culvert and pretty much straight down and he had to clean a lot of heavy snow away from the pipe. We set the machine up cross ways and at a slight angle up on the shoulder(some ice) of the road. He scooped his first bucket and instead of bringing in his boom and dipper then swing and dump, he fully extended his dipper and boom then made the swing to dump his bucket. The backhoe came very close to going down into the hole as his bucket was filled with heavy wet snow and fully extended when he swung it around. I stopped him and told him that he was very lucky and explained the proper way to do this task. Yes, he said that a person has to learn from his mistakes and this was a learning experience for him. Okay..his next bucket full...fully extended his boom and dipper, made the swing and away went the backhoe down in the hole...front bucket looking at the sky:Banghead He was not hurt except for his feelings. Its nice to be able to look back and tell some of the stupid things that we all do once in a while, and its also nice to say that no one got hurt:yup
So did you have to hop on the hoe and push it up out of the hole or did you let him try to fix it himself.
I had seen enough, also he was pretty rattled so I got it out for him. I shouldn't be telling so many stories about this guy but he is just so dam comical. He wants to operate machinery but he just doesn't have what it takes and he has proved it over and over again. Just like the old saying for truck drivers that can also be applied to backhoe operators..."there are backhoe operators and there are people that drive backhoes" He would qualifiy in the latter:yup
stupid things operators do thread yay... doing a sewer job in town and let the new guy run the breaker never ran an excavator before forman says what the heck lets have some fun i basically went and this outta be fun so off he went decided he'd break rock around a fully charged watermain beside it so he put the bit on the ledge and let her rip,but woopsie he lost control and drove it into the watermain in no time flash the was water spraying no less than 20 feet in the air i started laughing and looked at my forman and told him we found our new operator. first ever construction job i worked on we were pulling tanks out of an old gas station was on a small hill and ramped down towards the street,we had a operator that was kinda forgetfull at times so these guys we outta towners and rented the areas largest contractor to use 2 brand new mack CH 613's just off the lot even the owner was there and smiling like he just won the lottery anyways the backhoe was on the top of the hill pointing downward towards the truck.....the excavator operator asked if he set the parking brake on the hoe? he swore up and down he did even got kinda ticked we kept asking....all of a sudden the hoe started rolling and smash right into the side of that brand new truck the owner was almost in tears and the old operator walked over and playfully joked he guess he didn't pull the parking brake. hmmm dump truck drivers not locking their gates and half the load on the streets,an operator releasing the Q/C bucket while dumping into a triaxle dump trailer couple operators falling into raw sewage its just another day in paradise.
Murray83, you had to mention a water main, didn't you? :Banghead This one's gonna take some detailed explanation. A picture is worth a thousand words. The projest originally consisted of 79 townhouses, and 5 condo buildings. Condo #1 was three stories, but the two intended to be built where #4 and #5 are located were to be six stories. The townhouses sold well, but the condos sold really slowly. The developer decided to cancel the larger condos and finish up with more townhouses--buildings #3, 4, and 5, in the picture. We'd already installed sewer, shown in green, to service condo building #3. It was supposed to simply be a lateral, directly to the building. When the change was made to townhouses, it was necessary to add a manhole at the end of our existing pipe, and run across the frontage of #3, with seperate sewers for each house. This shouldn't have been a big deal... The condos required a sprinkler system. In the basement of building #1, they built a pump room, and ran 8" ductile iron out of the building, and around to where the other buildings would later be tied on. Building #2 was built and tied on prior to the decision to switch to townhouses. I was busy on the site at the time that sprinkler system was being installed, but it was done by others. When the time came to start the sewers for building #3, I asked the developer if he had a location of the 8" sprinkler system pipe. (It was privately owned, and on private property, so it wouldn't have been identified by a one call locate anyway.) The developer said, in no uncertain terms, that the 8" pipe ended in front of building #2, just beyond where it entered the building. (Indicated be the yellow arrow.) I said my recollection was that it was a looped system, and ran the entire perimeter of that center area. I was told I was mistaken. Well, I was, but so was he. Understand, that this was an urban site, and had been built up, and torn down many years prior to our work. There was plenty of buried rubble, and old stone and concrete foundation work still left in place. I began to excavate for the proposed manhole. At about 4 feet deep, I scratched across a piece of concrete. This was not at all unusual. I grabbed onto it and yanked it out. The amount of water that followed it out of the ground was highly unusual. That concrete was a thrust block at the end of the 8" ductile iron sprinkler line... It gets worse...
One stroke of good luck that day, was the fact that there was a technician on site, doing routine maintenance work on the sprinkler system. In fact, the system was under only static pressure--the pressure of the city water main that fed the site. Also, since he was working on the system, the alarm system was disabled--otherwise, we'd have had firetrucks rolling as soon as the water started moving through the sprinkler system. One of the guys went running to find the fellow in charge of grounds maintenance, so we could get in and shut off the water. (There was no valve outside the building--a wise precaution against somebody inadvertantly shutting down the sprinklers while trying to shut down something else.) The guy looking for the mauntenacne man was met at the door by the sprinkler tech, who expressed surprise at the fact that, as he worked, all of a sudden the pump started turning as if by magic. (Our opening of the pipe had allowed the water to run through, spinning the pump.) Once he understood what had happened, he shut the whole mess down pretty quickly. We dug around the end of the 8" pipe, and found a bell, with about a 2 foot piece coming out of it, and a cap on the end. Since it would've been in the way of the future manhole, we took the piece out, and put a plug in the bell. This was secured by a retaining clamp, behind the bell, with two pieces of threaded rod holding a bar across the plug. All bolted up nice and tight, there was no way that plug was going to push out of there, even without a thrust block. Right? Now, the sprinkler system had a "jockey pump" that kept it charged at whatever its specified operating pressure was. (I'm thinking 190 PSI, but it's been a few years.) Keep in mind, that this system was designed to be able to push water up to the top of a six story condo building. The tech put the system back online, and came back outside. We all stood and watched... Ever so slowly, the threaded rods began to bend, and the plug backed out of the bell, maybe half an inch, and then stopped. Everyone began to breath again. Until we watched the entire end of the pipe move six inches... Just about that time, we were interupted by a roar, from the side of building #1, and a puff of black diesel exhaust. Had I mentioned that this whole system was powered by a 6 cylinder Cummins? About 18 feet back (the length of a section of ductile iron pipe), a geyser erupted from the lawn. That Cummins had been patiently waiting for the chance to do what God had intended it to do, and it wasn't going to be denied. The jockey pump had pushed the next joint back right apart, and the diesel took over from there. The tech took off at a dead run for the pump room, and by the time he got it shut off there was two feet of water against the basement garage door of building #2. We dug that section of pipe out, and re-installed our plug assembley, but this time we poured a yard of concrete against it, and left the backhoe bucket pushing against it all night til the concrete was hard enough....
Had a similar problem once but wasnt as bad as yours. We had just finished putting in the 8" ductil iron water main and all the services for a 9 lot development, we backfilled everything except the services because those are usually where the system will leak. So we get the test pump hooked up, fire it up, pressure starts climbing, hits 150psi then drops to about 5 and keeps bouncing around. so we go through and check all the saddles for the services and re tourqe them. still only 5 pounds. the main was a straight shot at the end and dead ended with a hydrant with a thrust block behind it. Turns out that at only 150 psi it pushed about 40 feet of halway burried pipe and our thrust block apart. You should see the thrust block we have now, 2 ecology blocks and about a yard of concrete.
Yeah, you don't appreciate what that water pressure can do until you've seen it at work...
mega-lugs
We would have, but the plans didnt call for them, just the thrust block. Our pipe supplier said that it would be fine. What do you guys have to test your water line at? we have to pump it up to 225PSI and it cannot drop more than 5psi in a two hour period.
confession is good for the soul...continued I am bringing this subject up again as there has been a lot of new members lately. This is a chance to share some of your stories of comical or maybe not so comical things that you have done, or witnessed on the job. I for one enjoy reading the stories, and I'm sure everyone else would to. So fess up guy's...what story would you like to share?? ointhead Depending on the response, I could probably think of a few more "stupid" things that I have done over the years and be willing to share:Banghead
I once read somewhere that the number one cause of injury in construction was falls getting on or off equipment. I proved that point today. I was loading my dump truck all day with the bobcat. I got out of the bobcat to check on something when the bucket was full of rocks. As I exited, I used a rock as a step (dumb mistake) and it spun sending me off balance. As I went to step back off the side of the bucket to regain my balance, my heel caught the edge of the bucket and I fell on my left shoulder from the rear. It popped loud enough I could hear it distinctly over the sound of the running bobcat. I either separated my shoulder or tore my rotator cuff. I am not new to this kind of injury as it has happened to me several times during my bull riding and motorcycle racing stints. I know I am in for some sleepless nights and painful days for a while to come. You would think I would know better since it wasn't that long ago that I took a similar spill right in front of a customer. I was getting out of the bobcat on the top of a steep hill and caught my toe on a rock in the bucket which got me running down the hill to try to regain my balance. I was a sight like you see on America's Funniest Videos with me running down the hill with my upper body going faster than my legs could unitl I finally hit the ground. I was going so fast I must have rolled for 10 yard before I finally came to a stop. It was pretty embarassing but I didn't get hurt. Just looked stupid. I think the customer wanted to laugh but was afraid to.
I could fill ten pages of this BB with embarrassing things I've done .. embarrassing things other work associates have done .. and embarrassing things I've seen, or had to fix .. However, seeing as this is a confessional thread .. I guess I'll have to stick with my personally embarrassing moments. One of the most memorable, would have to be .. dropping a fully-equipped, 25 tonne (55,000lb) D7F Cat dozer off the lowbed .. at 70 kmh (about 45 mph) .. about 30 years ago .. Now, the advantages in this confession, are .. it was on a dirt back road .. no-one saw anything .. the damage was minimal .. and I couldn't be fired for this piece of stupidity .. because it was MY machine, and MY truck and lowbed .. It all started, when as an agricultural earthmoving contractor, in the wheatbelt of West Oz .. with three dozers .. I would engage in a large number of dam (pond) enlargements every Summer, as a large % of my annual work. I'd often work the tractors together, or close together, on adjoining farms .. so I could keep costs down, and keep better control of what was going on. Enlargements are always lousy jobs. You generally have 3-4 feet of mud to work around, that you had to avoid getting bogged in, as you widened the dam on either three or four sides. Sometimes, the inevitable happened, and the mud got too deep .. you accidentally slipped into it .. or you misread the depth .. On this day, I was working away, on one D7F .. about 3/4 of the way towards completion of one dam enlargement .. and I got a visit from one of my operators, saying he'd bogged the other D7F, on an enlargement he'd been doing, about 6-8 km (4-5 miles) away. Annoyed that I'd have to stop work on this enlargement, and take my tractor over to the operators job, to haul him out .. I threw the D7F on the back of the Mack and tandem lowbed, and roared off .. taking a little-used back road, and one I hadn't driven on a lot, to get to the other machine. The trailer was a dropdeck style, about a 1M (3') deck height with 10.00 x 20 wheels .. a full-height deck over the tandem assembly .. and a beavertail with ramps, to load up. The truck was an early 70's, F-700 Cabover Mack. Now, in those days, we NEVER chained the tractors on. It just wasn't worth the effort, we reckoned .. because the roads we travelled were mostly back country roads, with little traffic .. and the time taken to chain tractors on, was regarded as a nuisance .. and we always reckoned, if a tractor was going to fall off, it would bust any chains, anyway .. or take the truck and trailer with it. Anyway, I set off .. at speed .. because there was rain forecast within 12 hours, and time was the essence of everything we were doing .. and I wanted to get back and finish my enlargement, ASAP .. On this little-used, dirt back road, there was .. unbeknowns to me .. one of those wondrous pieces of local Shire Council (county) works of unprofessional road art .. called a variable-radius curve .. These variable-radius curves are caused by someone not surveying a curve properly .. but by 'roughing' the curve in, with a grader, by eye .. with the result, that if you travel one direction around the curve .. it starts off tight .. then gets easier .. but travelling the other direction .. it starts off, a wide easy curve .. then suddenly gets tighter and tighter .. I guess you're starting to see the next stage of the story here?? .. Yep .. I came into this R/H curve, with the Mack and lowbed, at about 90 kmh (55 mph) .. from the easy end .. then all of a sudden .. HOLY MOLY! .. this bend is getting tighter and tighter!! .. I backed off the loud pedal, but I was just a little too late. I couldn't wash off enough speed .. all I could do, was steer into the curve .. and hope like hell, the D7F stayed on. I dropped back to 70 kmh, and hanging onto the wheel like grim death, I thought I'd made it .. but I forgot one thing. Those track shoes on the D7F were coated in nice greasy clayey mud .. and she took off .. right over the L/H/S of the trailer, blade first (we always loaded up, blade forward) .. Now comes the amazing part. I watched in horror, in the L/H mirror, as the L/H corner of the blade gouged into the dirt road .. and the D7F stood up .. almost vertical .. rotated 180° .. and bounced, BACK UP INTO THE AIR! .. above the trailer .. while the truck and trailer shot out from underneath .. !! However, the D7F wasn't to be airborne for too long .. no sirreee .. she came back down again .. facing the opposite direction (backwards) .. and landed on the beavertail of the trailer, with 2 of the 3 ripper shanks, ripping straight through the 5/16" plate on the beaver tail .. and bringing me to a VERY rapid halt!! .. Climbing out of the truck, somewhat shook up .. I carefully inspected the damage .. and was amazed to find that the D7F was undamaged .. and the only casualty, was the ripper holes in the beavertail of the lowbed!! I started the tractor up, backed it up the beavertail, and extracted the ripper shanks .. drove it forward off the trailer .. levelled off, the almighty great gouge in the road .. .. loaded up again .. and took off for my original destination .. Despite a careful inspection, I could not find one single piece of damage to the dozer .. possibly due to the dirt road gouge slowing a lot of the impact .. and the holes in the beaver tail were repaired within the next month, to avoid answering any embarrassing questions .. I can honestly say, this is the only time I have known a large dozer to fall off a trailer .. do a full 180° flip in mid-air .. and land facing back the other way, with minimal damage. It's not something I'd ever wish to repeat .. and if an operator had done it, he'd probably have been fired, unless he was a particularly good operator .. I must admit, the crux of the accident resulted from excessive speed, for the conditions .. however, the bottom line is .. that some proper road engineering, with a constant radius curve .. would have not added to the problem .. and most likely would not have resulted, in the tractor falling off. As always, I was young and over-enthusiastic, and the years have seen caution come to the fore. One thing I am particularly wary of nowadays, is travelling with great care, on roads I'm not fully familiar with ..
I don't think I can top that one, but here goes... I personally have 1) Taken out a set of temporary traffic lights,over a 4 lane city street at lunchtime, with a 613B paddle scraper, by trying to cut a roadbed for a highway exit ramp. We needed a loader but didn't have one...snagged a guywire with the draft arm. Did this deed, then left for another job. Sorry, gotta go! 2) Found out a Raygo Rascal roller, in high gear, will do 0-30 mph down a 3-1 slope in about 3 seconds.... 3)Had to road a brand new 613C off of a flooded jobsite. The only way out was ramp built over a curb. Who knew someone else was stupid enough to build a ramp over a water main? The water poured out, the formean had dropped me at the scraper and had already left, and there was no one around to tell...and I had no cell phone then... The site was really flooded after that... 4) Roaded a tractor and disc with a low tire, through rush hour traffic. Nerve racking, but no problem. Diced up a bloated dead Raccoon all over the front of a white car, that was tailgating me ..still no problem. Went over a couple of wooden decked bridges, on a closed county road, being used as a haul road for bottom dump trucks. Took 2 planks out of each one. Big problem. 5) My crowning achievement. As a first year apprentice, I was running a JD 700 (industrial 5020) 2wd tractor with a pull sheepsfoot roller. A very used piece of equipment. This thing had a bad electrical system. Wouldn't charge the battery, so we had to pull start it. I had a cable slung across the nose for this purpose, and fiqured out that if I parked in back of a scraper at night, I didn't have to drag the cable so far in the morning. So, one morning, i walked past the 627E that Ralph ran, as I did every morning. I waved at Ralph, and I THOUGHT he acknowledged me. Looped the free end of the cable over a hook on the rear of the scraper, hopped on board, put it in gear, opened the throttle a little, and waited for Ralph to pull me. He started off, I started the tractor, and it was then I realized Ralph did not know I was back there! He set off at a slow pace, headed for a 3 foot vertical drop off! Fortunately, he broke that off as he went over it, so the path was clear. Then the ejector slid back and I figured out that he was loading. I start thinking it's gonna be real bad if he makes it to the haul road, as the old JD didn't usually travel at 23 mph! Fortunately for me, a dozer was heading the other direction, I flagged him and got him to stop Ralph, and I got a stinging lecture for that one. But, the story ain't over yet..... About 3 weeks later, it's getting cold in the mornings, and the old JD still hasn't been fixed yet. We are still pull starting it in the mornings. I am now running this things bundled up in coveralls and winter gear. I have the throttle held open with a bungie cord, since the linkage is worn out, and otherwise you'd spend an entire shift with one hand holding it open. Not practical. But important to the story, as you'll soon see. My boss comes up to me and hands me a can of ether to help start the JD. This thing has a flat deck, no toolbox, and there isn't room in my pockets, so where to put the ether? I look around, and spy this hole in the dash, where the tach once was...dead center in the dash, about a foot or so in front of my face. And since the electrical system is dead, and I have the master switched off, all the wiring is dead, right? Wrong. A couple of hours later, I am rolling the fill, in 4th or 5th gear, wide open, and I came up to the end and make a right to go back the other way. I see the nozzle of the ether can pop off, and WHOOSH! There is a huge fireball, point blank in my face! The can is spouting fire like a blowtorch! I smell burning hair, I can't lean back, so I thought, **** THIS!!!! and over the side of the tractor I went, jumping hard so the roller wouldn't get me! My boss looks over and sees the tractor going full tilt in a circle, nobody on it, and me nowhere to be seen! He and one of the mechanics, set a new speed record, coming across the fill in the boss' truck, mostly airborne. Meanwhile, I'm on the inside if the circle, warily watching the tractor in case it hits a clod and comes after me. They arrive, and the mechanic blasts the tractor with an extinguisher, and manages to put the fire out, but by now the fire has eaten through the oil line, and oil is spraying all over the cab. I am wondering how we are gonna stop this thing? Maybe ram it with a scraper? My boss wound up getting a shovel out of his truck, and speared the bungee cord, which allowed the tracor to idle down to where I could jump back on and kill it. It turned out, that in the past someone had put a jump wire across the disconnect switch, so the system was live all the time, regardless of where the switch was set. A bare wire had shorted against the side of the can, and set it afire. I'm lucky it burned, and didn't just explode. At the end of the whole thing, my boss didn't blame me, he said if the tractor hadn't been such a POS, it wouldn't have happened! Then they fixed the starting problem! Turned out to be dead batteries. I had one hell of a first year. alan627b
alan627b- :lmao :lmao :lmao Those little rascal Raygos! How many sets of underwear did you go through on those adventures?
Nothing Wrong That A Good Insurance Fire Wouldn't Fix... Just the one pair! The one I had to run is a worn out POS, when I got on it none of the controls were marked, I kept fiddling with it until I could get it into a gear so it would move, and had to get it down a 30 or so foot 3-1 slope, to the bottom of a landfill cell we were building. I got up to the edge of this thing, and I really did not want to go down it, but could see no other way. I knew I'd done the wrong thing, as soon as it nosed over...and the POS 4-71 Detroit died...it flew down the hill, did a jump over a windrow of dirt at the bottom, and rolled to a stop. I bashed my knee into the windshield frame, and limped off, swearing I'd find a railroad flare to put into the fuel tank....or that i was going to quit! This thing is still so worn out, you can watch bubbles leak from under the head gasket, it leaks oil from every pore, and the center pin is toast, so the steering valve turns the wheel if it hits a bump, and will rip the wheel out of your hand. It's a joy to maneuver in a tight spot, and will cheerfully gas you to death...they put a tall stack on the muffler. to get the fumes up higher...thank God I very seldom have to run it. The laborers thought it was funny, and wanted me to do it again. Out of consideration for my fellow man, I got a paint pen and marked all the controls. I also painted "Death From Above" on one side.... alan627b
I think, in times of extreme stress, the ol' spincter tends to slam shut, preventing leakage. Pulling the seat cushion out of your @ss is usually the problem.....
OK here is a few- 1 - It was a cold Feb. day and I pulled the T250 bobcat up to the truck to get some fuel. Like any wannabe operator I first opened the rear door to check the oil, etc. I went to get the hose to fuel the bobcat and realized the fuel fill is on the opposite side. So I hop into the machine to turn it around and unfortunately I didn't realize that the back door was still open. Bobcat orange steel door 1, white sheet metal ford right rear corner panel 0. $4000 and a body shop later you couldn't tell a thing.:Banghead 2- I was using a 420D to install a section of corrugated pipe on a lot we were filling. The existing pipe was as deep as an extendahoe would reach. Got the pipe in and hooked and proceeded to backfill. Everything was going well until I decided to reach out a little farther and pad the end of the pipe. The outrigger gave way - since I was sitting on a soft fill slope at the top- and over the machine goes down a step bank, into the woods and a brush pile. When the machine stopped moving, I was standing on the right side glass, still in the seat, with the machine on its side. All I could think about was not letting the limbs and logs break through the glass and rob my family jewels. I figured I could do without my feet. 3- As a youngster getting use to running a skid steer, I was backfilling topsoil around a new house for the landscaping. I am dumping dirt with the bucket and sort of shaking the bucket to somewhat spread it behind the sidewalk. I do this with about 2 buckets, come back with the 3rd bucket to repeat the process. As I am marvelling in my operator skills I back up to reveal the 4 tooth holes with insulation hanging out of them in the side of the new house - you could see inside on one of them. To make matters worse the house was set to close later that week. ointhead Later CM
Talking about open doors and disasters .. I knew a farmer who had a 5000 gallon, ground level, fibreglass water tank, for stock water, set up in the field. It was mounted on a sand pad, on a slight slope. He drove into the field one day, in his 1970's model Landrover, to check the water level in the tank .. and pulled up fairly close to the tank, facing uphill. He threw the drivers door wide open, towards the tank .. started to get out .. but had forgotten to set the brake. The Landrover started rolling backwards .. the door is still wide open, remember? .. and as he reaches for the brake, the edge of the door comes into contact with the fibreglass tank .. at just the right angle for it to commence digging in .. The Landrover continues to roll back for another 3 to 4 feet, as he commences to apply the brake .. but meanwhile, the sharp edge of the door is being forced into the tank, further and further .. with excellent leverage from a rolling 1½ ton 4WD .. .. until something has to give .. And something DID give .. and it wasn't the door! .. .. the tank split open .. a full 6' high split .. and 5000 gallons of water said .. "Hey! .. we're outta here, guys!!! .. .. right through the cab of the Landrover!!! .. He reckoned, it was bad enough getting wet .. and getting the interior of the Landrover flooded .. but he said, the worst part .. was getting hurled against the passenger side door by 5000 gallons of escaping water .. and thinking he was going to drown like a rat, in a sinking ship .. He managed to find the door handle on the passenger side, and open it, within seconds .. to release the substantial water pressure on him. However, by that time, the pressure was subsiding, as the bulk of the water found its easiest path to ground, and cascaded off down the slope. He had unwittingly .. ruined and almost emptied .. a 5000 gallon tank, in probably just over 15 seconds, by a simple error of judgement .. coupled with an amazing alignment of the door with the tank, that you probably could not have done again, in 200 purposeful tries ..
lol..I knew you guy's would have some stories to tell...geez alan...you should write a book:lmao Great stories everyone!
I ran over 2 stakes today and took out one of the hubs I haven't hit 2 stakes in the the past 2 years.
Truck driver. :bouncegri
If I was gonna write it, I think I'd use an alias.....
I'd have to say one of the worst things i did was one week we had a blizzard. I went in the shop after plowing for god knows how many hours and I got in one of the ten wheelers, started it up and walked over to the next one, I was sitting there and out of nowhere the first truck started moving forward right towards my 1000 gallon waste oil heater. I ran over jumped in the passengar seat and pulled the engine cut out cord just in time. The truck was in first gear when i started it and had like 30 pounds of pressure, so once it warmed up and built up air it had taken off because the brakes werent applied. Taht was one scary night.
never seen a truck stay running in gear with the brakes on :beatsme ,not saying its a story but thats just me
I'm thinking Allison.
two years i was in a hurry to get to my wifes college graduation. i finished fueling my loader jumped in and took off ripping the fuel hose right off the pump!!! yeah i forgot to hang the nozzel up. man i still have not lived that down.
it was an old mack with a allison automatic. I bought it from the city of cambridge as a dump truck then turned it into a sander
Strange but true Okay, As some more of you stepped up to the plate with more "confession's" I will tell another story. This story is not funny or something stupid that happened...well...maybe a little, but it's kinda weird. Years ago I was plowing one of our back roads and at the end of this road was a bad overflow of ice that needed cut out. As I was making my cuts and pushing the material back, I got over to far and slide into the ditch(stupid thing). There was no frost under the snow in the ditch and I was sunk into the mud. Usually I could get out of a pretty bad hole using my moldboard etc. but with this I was down so far that it was hopeless. I was out of radio contact and this was before the age of cell phones(I think as I never had one anyway). I was about 15 miles from civilization. It was colder than blazes out as well. The old grader (77 Champion piece of...) was laying over quite well making sitting there quite uncomfortable. I sat there for about 2 hours trying everything to get it out of the hole, only to keep getting myself in worse and tipping over more to the side. Then the strange thing happened...I was wishing so hard that the dam thing would just come out of there so I could go home...I put it in gear, let out the clutch and it came out of the hole, and I felt that something was pushing me. Never spun a wheel. How do I explain it? I can't :beatsme but I will never forget it....stayed tuned for more tales from the dark side.....:wierd
Grader4me, maybe the ground froze up enough for you to get some traction, or something else? I will add one for you guys. I was loading my dozer on to my tag trailer one day and was using a GMC C6500 dump truck for the pull truck (sold truck). The truck was parked on a side road facing a busy intersection and the road was wet. As I drove the dozer on to the trailer the trailer lifted the back axle of the dump truck off the road and me, dozer, trailer, and dump truck went for a ride down the hill towards the intersection and house at the end of the road. I am still sitting in the dozer just waiting for the big bang! At the end of the road was a planter with dirt and trees and as the truck ran over trees and started to tip over the weight on the trailer kept it from going over and everything came to a stop before it all went into the intersection and house. Had to drive dozer off of trailer and pull truck and trailer back onto the road and reload using wheel chocks this time.
I just took over an hour to read all the posts on this topic and all the problems that people had. Guess I have a few to share too. 1. Landed the kobota tractor into a drained (thank god) pond. It was the hydrostatic style so you just push the pedal down to go forward or reverse. Well I managed to hit the "gas" instead of the brake, sending the tractor over the 30 degree edge. I managed to keep rolling the bucket and sticking rocks under the tires to get out. 2. Went over a bump on the 955 track loader and smashed my head into the windsheild causing several spider web cracks to form 3. rode the trailer down the hill with the mini excavator on the trailor until the bucket hit a tree and stopped. Chock those wheels !!! 4. Almost got my legs pinned between a backhoe and a fuel tank. Managed to jump in the bucket out of danger, roll kinda slow, but still would have screwed me up. 5. Best of all, there was a phone line in an area that I had to dig. I dug down with the shovel to find it. After I find it I dig around it witht eh excavator and get the trench dug. Dug around it for well over an hour with the excavator on never touched it. I get off and walk in the trench to check the grade and I tripped over the line an broke it:Banghead :Banghead man was I pissed. 6. more to come when I do some more thinking!!
No. When you start to do thinking, these sorts of things are supposed to stop.
Hope the windshied. But if not, would explain 3-5
Thanks, I do the best I can. :thumbsup :thumbsup
Well, its kinda funny how this thread came back to the top after what happened to me yesterday. I wasn't gonna talk about this with anyone because I'm the only person that knew about it but hey....my soul could use a little help. So anywayz, I had my Stihl weedeater out in the woods yesterday, clearing the trail to my deerstand. I've got a blade on it for taking down saplings and brush. I've found that the normal brush blades tend not to work so well or get dull rather quickly so I bought a DeWalt carbide tipped plywood blade and drilled the hole to 1". I've been using it since the beginning of summer and it works awesome. No sharpening, less wear on the weedeater because of the smaller amount of cutting effort and it sounds cool....kinda like a Skil saw when its cutting sapplings down. I can cut saplings up to about 2" with no trouble. Doesn't even struggle a bit! Back to clearing the trail..... The trail is about 200 yards long and had overgrown to the point where my truck was barely fitting through. The trail comes off of the driveway at the in-laws house so I had backed truck and trailer in the mouth of the trail so as not to block the driveway. I had the 4-wheeler on the trailer because I was also going to move my stand while I was there. I start right behind the trailer and go down the right side of the trail. When I make it to the end, I turn around and come back up the left side....Everything's still going good... I considered myself finished with that little project so I figured I'd unload the 4-wheeler and move my stand. Then I noticed that I hadn't cut the 15-20' on either side of my truck. I pull my trusty weedeater back off the truck and fire it back up. Started at the front of my truck on the passenger side and worked my way to the back. Made it past the truck and was working beside the trailer when it happened....aw come on, you know what happened....:Banghead There was a 1" sapling about 3' away from the front tandem tire. I was about half way through it when the blade grabbed ahold. I snatched it outta the groove and right into the trailer tire. So now I have a 3" gash in the sidewall and no spare in sight. It's amazing how fast the air leaves out of a tire with a cut that big in it. So, after 10 minutes of taking the tire off and unhooking the trailer, 18 miles to town to get a new tire, 15 minutes and $30 at the tire shop, 18 miles back to the trailer, 10 minutes to put the tire back on and hook the trailer back up......I was back in business. Had I not been lazy and taken the whole 30 seconds to move the trailer I would've saved alot of trouble. I'll move the stand tomorrow .....
:roll ........{pause to catch breath}...... CB, I'm so sorry to hear of your misfortune. {pause, to appear sincere}...... :lmao :lmao :lmao
After I kicked the flat tire countless times.......I couldn't help but laugh at what I had done too. If anybody is looking at getting into the tire shredding business.....try the DeWalt carbide blades. Your productivity will skyrocket.....:bouncegri
at least you did not run your cell phone over with a bushhog like i did:Banghead :Banghead
Heck your lucky, if it have been me it would have been the truck tire. ointhead
In the words of the Cable Guy, "That right there is funny I don't care who you are That's funny."
Well I won't laughing at the time. Know Its cracks me up when I talk about it. Thought of another funny one I did. Last year we were finishing up the horse arena we just built. We had about 3 acres to seed and straw, so we rented one of those small straw blowers where you throw about 1/4 of the bale in at a time into the top of it. We sat the blower on the end of the 16' flatbed trailor and loaded about 30 bails on the front at a time. All being pulled by the 30 hp kobota tractor with a hitch attached to the box blade Well we ran out of straw, so the boss and the helpers went to go get some more. I stayed behind to finish things up. I noticed that the tractor and made some ruts in the fresh ground so I decided to take the trailor off and drag the ruts out. the area had a slight hill so I stuck a rock or two behind the wheels. The tong of the trailor was facing up hill. When I go to unhook the trailor it did not occur to be that with no straw on the front of hte trailor and a blower on the back of it, it may become a little light in the front. you guessed it, as soon as I unhooked it, there it went, tong up in the air and it jumped the rocks under the tires and down the hill it started. If it was not for it heading straight for my new truck I would have said the hell with it and hoped for the best, but instead I grabbed the hitch and pulled it back down but could not stop it. I decided real fast this was not going to work, so I started to steer the trailor so that it would go sideways on the hill and stop. That work and it coasted to a stop. I looked down and saw well over a foot of fresh straw piled up beneath my feet from sliding down the hill on the straw. I did good though, Never fell, just did a very walk and slide. Boss returned and asked why that 150' long strip of fresh straw was disturbed and rutted up. Then I had to tell it all over again
:lmao :lmao :lmao :lmao these are some good ones. Dirtman if it make you feel any better I once found a gas line with my hoe, but didn't break it. Just so my labor could through a spade down there and put a hole in it. ointhead
"A flying saucer came out of no where and fired a death ray straight at it, we tried to get the rego number of the saucer but it was too fast."
Well I could tell you tons of screw ups I see each day at work. But like I tell all new guys that get hired. Everyone screws up, some are better covering them up, then others. And I also tell them if your not screwing up sometimes then that means your not doing any work! I think to myself sometimes when a "older" newly hired co-worker comes to a "young" long time employee to ask how to crank an A.D.T. or how to change out a bucket for forks on a loader. I believe they get p-oed when they have to come to me, but I never make them feel any lower than me. I started out the same way they did.
Jeremy well said with not making anyone feel small, I think some people forget they weren't born with all of this knowledge.
Yeah a good example for me was when they brought one of our new 12M Motorgraders out, and my boss expected me to just get up in it and put the building pad on grade. I was like a deer in headlights, but after 30 minutes of experimenting with the controls, I picked it right up.
i was clearing a few acres of scrub for a cherry farmer and cleaning terraces in his orchard with my D20 dozer. i had the ROPS off so as not to damage the trees(bright I know). Anyway I had to open and shut gates all day so I got smart and worked out if I lined up the gates i could jump off while still running open the gate close it and jump back on increasing my efficiency. Right? Well it was a miserable wet windy day so I had my new 3/4 length Drizabone jacket on. As I stepped off for the next gate the gear stick went right up the back of my jacket I was hung up feet off the ground arse on the track getting a serious beating starting to pull my jeans off gate getting closer starting to panic.Think John think . I had to sacrifice the jacket so I grabbed the side off the machine and pulled with all I had the jacket didn't even stretch the stitching but i bent the gear stick flat to the floor and just got clear before it went though the gate. the chain was off and it just sprung open i climbed back on and shut it down. collected my thoughts and finished the day wet, torn up butt cheeks and sore for a week. Now I stop the machine. Common sense really huh. I sold that dozer and bought a JD 350c Ive put that on its side twice clearing in really steep country and once down an old mine shaft backwards lucky it was only about 10' deep. I run a mini ex, a skiddy, and a dozer and they require the most respect when worked to the limits. John
:lmao:lmao:falldownlaugh I'm thinkin how Australia's Funniest Home Videos has really missed the boat
kind of my version of the landrover in GODS MUST BE CRAZY
I'm in the local Agriculture program at my HS, so I get to deal with a bit of equipment. Earlier this year, we got tested on tractor startup procedures and brought out one of our Deere 870's into the parking lot. Eventually, my friend, who I will note is often cocky and full of himself, got his turn to be tested. After bragging about how great he would do to our teacher and the class, he climbs on it, puts his seatbelt on, turns it on, and puts it into 1st range. Good so far. However, he slammed into 3rd gear, and hit the throttle as hard as it would go. The loader was still on the ground and the parking brake was on. ops
Stupid is not limited to equipment:
Was putting bigger pipe for storm drains to add a sudivision in. Had most of the new pipe in was fixing some sewer sevice line we had to cut when changing the pipe. One of them needed to be dug back a little to put a clean cut on the end. So they call me over. I look for other services on the ground(paint lines). I see a blue one, no big deal. I start setting up backhoe setting outrigger getting it level, When the guys in the hole ask me where the water coming from. I look, the outrigger didn't break the surface of the ground, but there is water coming from the ground and i was a foot away from the blue line. I raise outrigger and move the machine go look. There's a clod of dirt on the ground where the outrigger was. So I move it to see what damage i did. Water Meter. When the trackhoe dug the old pie out this one clump of dirt fell in the right spot with my name on it. Did I mention I was the youngest operator for the company and took a lot of slask everyday. 3 days later finishing up backfill in the same area. Had the road blocked gradeing it off with CAT 307 trackhoe. Traffic building, so I go to move to the nearest drive way. Fold the boom up start tacking. All of the sudden, it looked like black rope fell on the boom. Nope, phone line to the same house I took the water meter out at.:Banghead
When I was 18 and first got my CDL I drove an International with a 10 ton tag with electric brakes. I towed the excavator to a job, and then unhooked the trailer on the hill to haul the dirt away. Well, I blocked up every tire on the trailer and unhooked. The truck had an allison that I wasn't quite used to yet and every once in awhile it would roll back on a hill if you don't hold the brake and really give her some gas. Well I rolled back, hit the trailer and it took off down the hill. I'll tell you one thing, I have never been so scared in my life as that trailer headed down the hill and turned toward the other side of the street heading right for a house. But, I had left the ramps down and I'm pretty sure I used up all my luck that day because that trailer bounced off the curb went another 100ft or so down the road, crossed another road, and went into the woods on the other side. I was able to back the truck up to it and pull it back out. Scares me to think how lucky I was..deflected off a curb, crossed a busy street, and it just so happened that the other side of the road in only this 100ft stretch wasn't developed yet. Didn't sleep well after that one for a while. Another one that someone that worked for us did is pretty bad too. He towed a bobcat to a job over the hill as we say in Duluth. Well all he had done is dropped it on the pintle and hooked the lights, never latched it or hooked the chains up. So, he gets up there see's that and then gets distracted with the work. Works all day and never does hook the trailer up, tows it back down the hill. He's just lucky we don't use ball hitches, he would've lost it on the first hill. Still scary though.
Back in the '80s when Kennecott Copper still owned Chino Mines I was a Mining Shift Foreman at the Santa Rita, NM open pit copper mine. After a year as a dispatcher, and another year out in the pit as a junior foreman they assigned me to a turn where I relieved the Dozer Foreman, the Drill Foreman, and the Blasting Foreman on their days off. (I might add that I'm not an "Engineer"--I was a History Major in college, and came up out of the ranks of the Haul Truck Drivers after leaving a career in education in my early 30's.) One Sunday afternoon I had the Blasting Crew, and we were sent to shoot the oncoming Evening Shift's scheduled ore stations. The previous shifts had over-mined the area leaving a big "hard toe" sticking out that there was no way to get a rotary drill out on top off. I took one look at it and realized that we would be spending the rest of the week trying to get rid of it with secondary blasting every day. Then the light bulb went on in my head and I saw that, the way that rocky rib was sitting, it was right next to some drill holes in the pattern that we were shooting in the softer material next to it. I figured that if the reason to "Delay" a blast hole is to "Relieve" the ones behind it in the pattern, then the same thing could work in reverse to direct the energy back into the pattern (or beside it). We were using down-the-hole delays on some interval of milliseconds that I've now long forgotten, loading ANFO or IREECO's aluminized slurries. I loaded the holes adjacent to the aforesaid rib "Hot" with a good dose of aluminum, and set them to shoot at an interval behind the ones next to them. Well it worked like a charm. It knocked that rocky rib down like Joshua did the walls of Jericho! The only teeney-little problem was that I had forgotten Newton's Law of Physics..you know? The one about how "For every action there is an 'Equal' and 'Opposite' Reaction.. The shiock wave hit the rib and flattened it to smithereens. Then it bounced back into the adjacent ore body and scattered the next day's production out three feet deep for 100 yards! As I was leaving with the "accolades" of my colleagues ringing in my ears, they had every rubber-tired dozer and front-end loader in camp down there trying to buck up a face for the shovel to dig in!
the reason why confession is good for the souls is it makes the person peaceful inside.. our conscience works automatic and sometimes when we are bothered about something.. the conscience makes us worry too much. :usa SPAM REMOVED
My worst one and most dangerous mistake.I was cleaning out silt from a dry stock tank with an 1150 Case dozer..The one with the safety levers ya have to push down to allow the machine to operate.I had the doors open and noticed a piece of weather stripping had come off and was on the ground. Like a moron who knows better.I left the dozer wound out at high idle and jumped out to get the stripping.I am used to Cat dozers with a real parking brake.I had left those levers in the down position. I start to get in the dozer and throw the stripping inside. I hit the shifter and knocked it into reverse. She took off in reverse in fifth gear while I`m on the tracks.It tried to pull me under the fuel tank.Somehow I managed to get onto the cab deck and get it stopped. When I got in the seat it hit me what had almost happened. I had to stop for about 10 minutes to get my composure back when I realized how close to getting killed I had came. Stupid,stupid mistake for anyone,especially someone who has been on machinery for 20 plus years. Use the parking brake on any machine,and idle one down..Just,'I`ll jump out for a second,I don`t need too"..almost killed me.
My cousin had his legged ripped off by a dozer many years ago up in Cooper Pedy. Stupid idiot left the machine pushing to get a pack of cigarettes out of the ute, this particular machine had a beam across the tracks and his foot slipped off that and was caught by the tracks, thus pulling his leg under this beam. Luckily there was Royal Flying Doctor plane in the area and got him down to Adelaide pretty quick.
I hear ya Hendrik,lucky he is to be alive. I have a friend who runs a crew in a landfill in Waco ,Texas.He showed me some pics he had taken last year.One of his operators on a D-7 ran over a man on the ground.He didn`t know it till he seen the mans arm come up on the track. The fella had been warned about getting so close to where the dozer was working before.Supposedly he was squatted down unhooking a chain he had used to pull some trash off a trailer with.He was still there trying to free it from some garbage and the operator didn`t see him. My buddy told me the operator knew he was in the vicinity and was looking for him ,but he had already pivot steered on the man. He said the guy jumped out of his machine and took off running,then just sat down and started crying.Bad deal there,the guys family got a lot of money for that deal.
Ok, I'll add one... I used to own a Deere 8875 skidloader. I had a 4n1 bucket on it, along with steel grouser tracks over the tires. I had a long driveway that sloped towards the house. One day I was clearing snow and was heading up the hill. Well somehow I managed to get sideways and let me tell you, that skid headed down the hill sideways faster than any sled that I can remember. I was getting set to clip all of my light posts and finish up in my garage. I kept trying to dig the bucket edge into the driveway to spin my self around and it finally worked. At that point, I decided that the drive was clean enough so I went inside and poured myself a stiff drink...
Ha Ha..thats a good one carlm933g! Did ya have to change your underwear as well?? Welcome to the forum and what a way to come in!
Thanks for the welcome. That one shook me up a little - mostly because I kept thinking how much $$ this was going to cost to fix. Been lurking here for a while... I got a few more stories that I've experienced over the years - all in due time.
Okay, I just noticed your join date. You must be a shy little fella Look forward to your stories..
Not really shy, my friends think that I'm sort of a loud mouth... Anyway, I was grading crushed asphalt around my shop with a small utility tractor with a loader and a rear blade. I was running parallel with the shop and grading right against the foundation with the rear blade. I was watching the rear blade when all of a sudden I heard a loud cracking noise so I stopped, only to see that the front bucket caught the wood sheathing on the corner of my shop and ripped several boards off. I was able to see into my shop around the corner stud. Luckily, I didn't even touch the studs or the foundation. A couple of replacement boards, a little caulk, some nails and it was as good as new (my pride was hurt more)...
Here's one . . .Always check ALL OF your mirrors!!!! I pulled my Expedition into our commercial property driveway up behind my husband's '05 pretty white 350 dually - one of our employees was parked in the other front spot. My husband was in and out of the back yard a lot as I was working in the office. Suddenly, he came in and with a tone I'm not fond of said, "Get your car OFF my truck!" I (being a true ever-inquisitive woman) asked, "What do you mean?" Again, "Come and get your car OFF my truck!" I walked outside and saw that in his hurry to go put out some "fire" somewhere, he had backed up and lodged his pintle hitch into my bumper and grill. It took multiple employees, hammers, yelling, and many minutes to separate the two vehicles! While the vehicles are no longer together, my husband and I still are - and I NEVER park behind his truck : )
Haven't laughed that hard in awhile - THANKS FOR SHARING!
Yeah, they are never funny when they happen but sometimes make for very funny stories...
in my days as a dumptruck op. my boss was the tightest fella id ever met. id come home at everynight tellin him we need a new tailgate as i was havin to hammer one corner shut and it still leaked. he'd tell me we didnt have the money. so one day im cranked about poundin every dump and i wacked the gate as hard as i could with a 32 oz. plumb sledge. well all the world got fuzzy suddenly and i had this pain tween my eyes. seems i had hit the gate and it bounced and hit me tween the eyes! quick as i defuzzed i looked around for witnesses to kill! the next day we got the material for the new gate.
Well poop......When i first start on a backhoe my first job with a 1010 john deere was digging a footing for a fireplace alongside an existing house. I
POOP AGAIN.....i was so careful when i got down to the bottom of the basement as not to bust the footing that when i came up with a bucket full i stuck the boom right thru the eve of the house.. good thing i was the bosses son of he,d a fired me ha ha.
Gotta share this one. I was running a crusher crushing road base for a township road. After a couple hours one of the truck drivers that was hauling the base to the road got out of his truck and came over to me and said the grading forman said there wasnt enough binder in the material. I climb up the surge pile and tell the dozer operator what the truck driver said. About an hour later the same driver stops again and says the forman still says theres not enough binder in the material. I climb the pile again and tell the dozer operator that they still want more binder. He says so its binder they want huh! This operator grabs a shovel,, squats right there and poops in the shovel.... then walks over to the stockpile and sprinkles just a little gravel over the top of it. About the same time the same driver comes back into the pit and the operator takes the shovel over to him and says grab this and see if there is enough binder in it now. The driver did and he never ever stopped us again.........
a fella i worked with told a story like that, said the carpenters would go to the basement and crap. well after repeted request not to they continued, so upon theyre leaving for lunch he opens theyre job box scoops about half the tools out and craps throwin the tools back in. when they got back one fella came up and said theyd do anything he wanted just dont crap in theyre box again!
then a recent oops, i was hookin up to a trailer and didnt like the looks/feel so i was cranking the landing gear down to lower the trailer and then release the fifth wheel to rehitch. evidently didnt get the tractor brakes locked and while crankin i hear some noise, so i turn to see the tractor rolling down the drive towards the wharehouse! just as i get to the running board the wife had jumped over the stick and hit the brake saving the day and my job! and yes i thanked her repeatedly. and yes my gut was right on the hookup feelin/lookin off! and yes im more careful!
We had an old T-600 at the tire shop getting a flat fixed. My boss sent me down there to get the truck out of the tire shop's way, since it had been sitting there all morning. I hop in, fire up the engine, and release the brakes. I put my foot on the service brake and was fumbling around for the button to air up the seat, because the normal driver of the truck was 6'4 and I am only 5'8. I hear and feel a slight crash just as I find the elusive seat button. I look up and see that I coasted our truck into the side of a tire repair truck which started out about 20' ahead of my previous position. Apparently I had not been pushing on the brake pedal hard enough while in quest of the seat button and the truck rolled ahead. After reading my incident report the next day my boss suggested that I get everything set how I wanted it BEFORE I released the brakes.
My confession... When I was about 16, I was driving a straight truck delivering fruit and produce for a small company in Ct. As I was headed down Main St in my home town, there was a local cop standing right on the center line with his back facing me. I wasn't going more than 5 mph, as the traffic light had just changed from red to green. Well the west coast mirror on the drivers side whacked the poor guy in the back of his head - pretty good whack I might add. I kinda stopped and looked down at him, and I could tell he was seeing little birdies flying around his head, he looked mad but those birdies had the best of him . I gave it some quick thought, and realized I better be gone - before those birdies stopped flying. Being it was a small town, I would see him on the street every now and then, he never did figure out it was me:beatsme, and... he never did look quite right, but I never saw him standing on that white line again.
Accident to be avoided. Hello. What we need is an understanding for an emergency stop signal. I was working as a driver in the Austin Texas area when a flatbed driver was getting cornered. Another driver jumped on the flatbed and tried to signal a stop, nothing. There was a binder tool on the flatbed so he threw this into the oncoming dozers door. Only at this point did the operator stop, and he STILL wanted to move the machine! That day only an operator was hurt, a bit of glass and no more. The operator was a Mexican national not legally in the US, we found that bit out when the contractor called the police. But language should not be an issue, the traffic stop sign is universal, even if you can not read it you know what it means. The operator saw me and even made a gesture, so that was not the issue. And it is getting worse, people are hiring off the street and putting them on the equipment, Texas has no requirements whatsoever for operator, the , number of accidents in Texas bare witness to this. But, some minimum standard of training should be required, not just of operators but of everyone. The CDL is the response to the troubles in the trucking industry, big brother at work. We have things like the AGC that could help formulate training materials much like the ATA and JJ Keller do now. And, speaking of Keller, I have seen most of the material they produce, good and to the point. The last operator film I saw was "Shake hands with danger". Do not get me wrong, I do NOT want to see more government regulations. I want private industry to take the lead on this and make my jobsite a safer one for all, me the operator as well as everyone around me. Rules of the road for construction if you will.
ok i have something to say i was taking a 20 ton excavator which was on hire at the time driving down to the next town picked up my girlfriend who was coming back to mine any way driving down the town you get all the people lokking at you going as you do truck with eminox exhaust stack make it go. at the end of town there was a bridge id been under it before with machines on the back kept going and bang snapped the main dipper pin damaged the ram broke a couple of pipes you guessed it id hit the bridge for six what a bang or what i panicked out i came row of cars in front of me row of cars behind me all on stand still jumped in the machine to drop the arm down a bit soon as i started the machine put pressure on the boom oil came out everywhere naw id contaminated the streets with oil. I reversed the truck back past the traffic answered everything to the cops delayed the trains above the bridge cleared all the oil of the road what a night fareplay the girlfriend helped me though. Could bee worse i could of dealt with all that myself i was luckyof her. worst of all had to tell the block of his 3 year old machine had been damaged
some of you probly heard of the trailer dumps where you back your trailer on and unhook truck pull up and it picks trailer up almost straight up to dump saw dust and wood chips.. well we had one at my last employer it ha a hydralic leak .. call me out to fix it and it was directly under the cement slab that picks up trailers so i think mmmmmmm this aint good i call the big boss in to tell him i got to block up the dump hig enough to get under and dig thou 10 years of dust to find leak.....he says hell no ill show you ... cranks motor to pick up dump and stands it straight up in air and cuts engine off and says start digging well i say hell no it pissing hydralic fluid out the ground from pressure,,, he yells u are fired its shut off valves in cylinders and proceded to show me by takeing a wrench to crake a hose and hose blew off 2 inch stream of hydralic fliud hitting him and cement slab coming down fast i grab him and pull him out as his sons pull up ............. i didnt get fired i quit
I got in trouble today we got rained out. I left the job fast to though the mud off my tires so I wasn't flinging off for a mile down the road. The job super was right there and got pissed off that I was "Hotrodding".
This is a good thread....its therapudic to get some things out some time. I guess I've been lucky to an extent, I never had any significant injuries in 6+ years as a foreman/superintendant running jobs. I preached safety pretty hard because it was my company. I messed up my back pretty good once trying to pick up a CMP pie full of mud, though. Long ago I was working summers for the family company and running a Euc at the crusher plant. I came barrelling down a hill toward the crusher going to fast, no brakes and had 3 choices....I ended up hammering a tandem on road dump in the rear end. The crusher foreman handed me a shovel and a hard hat and pointed to the crusher. Whilst I was running jobs in the field about 7 years ago I got a goofy little project and was pretty undermanned. We were doing emergency flood repair on a structure over the Frio River. We had to dig a massive toe ditch and sink panels we cast on the side but there were a few knots in there that had to be busted out. The only available rig with a wet kit was the old school JCB backhoe and it was a pile of crap, to be honest. I was short handed so I ran it myself. I set up parallel to the trench, put my outriggers and front bucket down and swung the boom over. I got up on the hammer point and when I left off, the hydraulics pushed into the boom and swung the ass end over the trench rather violently and so there I am, balancing on the hoe ram chisel and the front bucket. Pretty spooky. I hated that machine. You knew you had pissed someone off when that thing rolled up on the lowboy.
Welcome to the forum Heavy Highway..good stories! I like this thread as well because no one is perfect and things happen..sometimes hilarious things. Not only can we laugh at some of the crazy things that happen to us..we can also learn from them. Thanks for sharing...
Well this one is not on me but An operator I worked with until he retired. We had a job that needed a crane and a clam bucket...........At a sewage treatment plant It seems that this concrete tank had an auger in the bottom the broke and the "Stuff" in the tank had gotten thick.Burnt two electric pumps up and the diesel motor backups wouldn't pump the "stuff" either. So we move the crane in and get the clam bucket hooked up then the city said they didn't want to transfer to another tank,It had to be hauled to a different site. They lined up end dumps to come haul the "stuff" off. The Drivers were up set at their payload. Well in the middle of cleaning the tank out, a part filled truck left. Guess he was tired of that "stuff " The operator swung around and nobody was there.In all my years I have never seen a water tight clam bucket and this one was no different.The op decided to swing back and put the "stuff " back. But the whole deal of the driver leaving upset the op.And I think the crane had a 100' feet of boom in it.so instead of lowering the bucket he just cut it loose and let the "stuff " drop. I Froze...........Next thing I heard Was KABLOOP I ducked behind a truck and a dozen guys took off running That "stuff" looked like a brown explosion!!! from my vantage point I saw the operator shut the door and wait. It was bad,Everyone was mad. Some people were being washed with fire hoses. Oh I forgot mention that there was an inspector and a spotter on a cat walk on that tank...... I just got in my truck and left.
i was clamming treated waste at the world's largest treatment plant in mc cook il. i was running a northwest #25 with a big clam. we were loading out trucks, it was 95 degrees out, and i got off the closing brake a little too quickly. the, uh, "poop" hit the fan, so to speak. there was an outline of me on the back of the cab because i had the window open. one hospital trip and 7 shots later, i was fine and much wiser.
my boss was going around a tight s bend corner on of the main roads here with a load of horse stalls lying on a hay wagon not strapped down and i guess he took the corner a little too fast well 3 of the 300 # plus horse stalls went flying off the wagon thankfully one of my co workers was tailing him and they were able to reload the wagon and make it home without any major problems.
Well I guess it's time I admit to a couple as well... A few years ago I spent an interesting summer working for a logging company in the beautiful redwood forests that im lucky enough to live next to. This company did not have what I would call "pristine" equipment, in fact most of it was down right scary. One particular dump truck that was later named "the devil truck" would become my nemises. It was a 1966 Kenworth that was only used off road out in the woods, it had a 6x4 tranny, no front brakes and no power steering. One more little issue the devil truck had was the fact that for some reason when you released the brakes it took just a hair over a minute for them to actually release. I was told by the bossman that it had been that way for years so I better learn to deal with it. It was so bad that if you just wanted to get out for a minute (to grab your lunch, water a tree, tell the loader man he's #1 etc.) the best option was to shut it off, put it in first gear and leave the brakes released. Well one fine morning after about a week on the job and a few minor incedents (losing brakes, snapping steering shaft at 40 mph, etc.) I show up bright and early ready to uphold the bossman's good impression of me. After warming up the devil truck I push the brake valve in and wait for it to start rolling down the hill so I can slip it in to gear and avoid the clutch (another small issue). After sitting for a while the bossman pulls up to chat with me about our big plans for the day. Of course I get out of the truck to greet him and we begin to talk. In the middle of our conversation I see his eyes widen so far I thought they were going to pop out of his head! I turn around expecting to see a bear or mountain lion coming up behind me, (actually a VERY common occurance out there) nope, no such luck! I turned around just in time to witness the devil truck truck roll about 30 yards down the hill and head on my boss's 3 week old super duty shoving it backwards into a ditch! The result: One totaled superduty, a new grill and bumper for the devil truck, an overhaul of the brake system on said devil truck, and me being :ban from truck driving and "demoted" to running the new rented cat 330. Apperantly the bossman hates excavators and thought that it would be punishment.... :beatsme
Ha! looks good on the boss in my opinon. At least he got the brakes fixed before someone got killed..and..gave you a promotion.. not a demotion..lol Keep the stories coming guys..
I was digging in a nice muddy hole once with a 700 Hitachi excavator with a 7cy bucket. One pass I came into a particularly soupy part of the wet hole a bit too fast and the muddy slop followed the curl of the bucket around and sent a tidal wave of mud out the top of the bucket straight into the cab, which of course had the front window open. At least it was not cold outside. Another job, on a 330 Cat excavator I was fine grading a ditch and parkway near a new road. It was early morning in the desert, and cold, but I had the front window open so I could see the grades without the glare of the sun on the window. The water wagon came by to wet things down for me, and he had a brand new water cannon. He turned the cannon on, and went to rotate it left, away from where I was, but the controls were backwards from the last one he had operated. The cannon stopped lined up with the open cab window, and I was soaked. Door was shut, so I had no place to go. I could see the operator panick, and start flipping switches to shut it off, but he couldn't seem to find the right one. after a few seconds, he reached down and pulled it into gear and drove off. I couldn't get any water the rest of the day, as he was afraid if he got close enough to me before I calmed down I would fire him. I froze my ss off that morning, but after I warmed up, I got calmed back down. I could tell by the look on his face it was an accident, and if that wasn't the case, heis fears would have been well founded. As it was, we both laugh about it now.
I can picture that poor water wagon operator perfectly.:falldownlaugh:falldownlaugh:falldownlaugh:falldownlaugh:falldownlaugh:falldownlaugh okay, I'm all better now:waving
The hurtingest thing I've done with equip. (so far) is: Little 3400 ford loader tractor moving big round hay bales into a pasture, one stupid, contrary cow that was more interested in going through the gate than eating. I finally told her "you bleeep, I'm going to stab these forks right through you", then shoved the tractor in sixth gear to cut her off before she could get out in the road. I went to go through an 18" deep very smoothly sloped ditch crossing, with my forks a foot off the ground and stabbed them into the opposite ditchbank at about 12mph, came out of the seat and stopped myself by burying the steering wheel in my stomach. I honestly thought I was hurt hospital bad for a few minutes. Thought of another: Old ford 4500 backhoe no ROPS cleaning up after a hurricane, backed into a patch of 2" diameter 10' tall pines, I didn't notice one hooked on an outrigger, until it bent past double and then slipped free, hitting me right across my lower back. That definitely brought tears to my eyes.
Jerry, I can just imagine the horror your poor operator was feeling when he was hosing you down.. ..eyes as big as frisbees..lol. Great story! mitch504..glad you escaped without to serious of an injury. I suppose the cow just walked away slowly...skaking its head...
A long time ago, in my teenage years when I knew everything, I was being cocky and backed our old 732 bobcat into the shop but being 16 years old and knowing it all I just sat on the loader arms and looked out the back window... When it was where I wanted it I reached down and lowered the arms with my hand on the pedal... That's when my right heel got caught between the loader arms and the frame... Luckily I just pinched it in there and bruised it up really good, no major harm done, but since that day, I NEVER operated ANYTHING from anywhere other than the operator's seat again! To this day I kick myself for being so stupid. And another to go with the water theme that seems to be going on here... A few years ago I was using a friend's 200 John Deere to do some emergency dyke building as one of my neighbours was getting flooded. She had a huge cottonwood tree laying there and wanted it moved a few hundred feet out of the way. It was a pretty warm day, the front window was open and the ground was covered with about 6 to 10 inches of water where I happened to be at the moment. The tree had been down for a while and was slippery as anything. So the following seems to happen in slow motion: I'm walking along this path. I see the log, about 3 feet in diameter and 16 feet or so long start to slip out from between the bucket and the thumb. I immediately curl the bucket in to try to stop it, but it keeps sliding and now I'm adding rearward momentum to it. As the log departs the bucket, about 4 feet off the ground I start to swing the machine in anticipation of what comes next but it only swings a few degrees before the log hits the water. The Tsunami hits me at full force and I opened my eyes when the wave ended to see about 3 inches of water in the bottom of the cab against the lower window and a very surprised little frog looking up at me... I opened the door and said frog departs along with the water on the floor... Not one thing in the cab was dry... After closing the window and door and sucessfully moving the log out of the way I decided to call it a day, stuck some heaters in the cab to dry it out and went home for some dry clothes...
I hosed down my foremen and the GS with a water truck. While they where looking at a full set of plans on the hood of the GS nice clean truck. They knew it was a mistake but where upset about the plans that where plastered to the truck.
Another water truck story . I'm the project engineer on a road construction project and stop by the job site. We're maintaining traffic in an urban area so things are a little tight. I park tight up against the barricade - out of everyone's way - and leave the drivers window down since it was a real hot day. The contractor is grading and compacting for density. The aggregate needs some water so the big water truck is watering away. This is a big KW with the spay nozzles on both front corners so the driver can watch where's he's watering . I walk about 3 city blocks to talk to my inspector. In the meantime the water truck is going forward and then backing up just watering away. I start back to my car and as I get closer, I notice the grade checker has my front car doors open and the water truck driver is there. The grade checker has a McDonald's plastic cup and is bailing water out of both front floor wells -both are full . The driver is all apologetic - he didn't notice the window open until he has backed past the car with the water on full blast. Pulled the trusty garbage bags out of the trunk (I always keep some in the trunk for emergency seat covers and raincoats )) and drove back to the office where they vac'ed it and put fans on it to dry it out. Fortunately, there were no important papers etc in the front seat.
Company I used to work for bought a Military Truck had it rigged for a water truck.I was filling it with water with the self fill pump and the boss had me to show him how.I had to leave and later he drove up pants all wet.Seems I forgot to tell him to close a valve before unhooking suction hose.
HMMMMM...the only dumb thing I've done was to get married!!!!! For the last 37 years!!! Rick
I was inching my dozer into the shop so I could just touch the blade to the bucket of the backhoe so I could close the door, the dozer I have ran abought 5000 thousand hrs,for some reason instead of pushing the throttle forward to shut it off I pulled it back wide open and pushed the backhoe through the back wall of the shop, the best part was my friend asking me what heck are you doing,I was in such disbelief I was speechless. lesson learned, never take for granted your ability of something that may seem like second nature once mastered.that's when accidents happen.
i bet your no stranger to pain then lol
volvo, nope not at all.....best advice I got fer a guy fixing to get hitched follows.... 1. Never tell yer wife she's right about anything......she will never let you forget it! 2. Never point out that she is wrong about anything......she will think that you think she is stupid.......and never let you forget it! 3. Never argue with her.....there are 2 ways to argue with a woman.....THEY DON'T WORK so why bother!!!! Rick
Ive had several flubb ups in my short time on this earth as an operator and mechanic. my biggy was under the dozer forum Here under post 1 and 11 I was doing a job at the lake with my little PC 50 grey market Komatsu with linkage controls. I was pulling up some lightning struck cedars and stacking them in some silt dams. I picked one up it had been hit pretty hard. I was swinging back to put it in the pile to pick up with the loader when the top slpit in the thumb and it roled into the cab and pushed back o nthe crowd lever. It has manul control locks and they have to be in neutral to lock. I gotte door open and barled got out . as it was about to crush its own cab a branch thit the throttle and killed the motor. I took the sawsall and delimbed the tree in the cab and finished the next day. One time dad bought a little 970 JD utility tractor with a loader and subframe mounted JD hoe. I hadnt run a hoe pattern in a while and dad wanted me to run down the road and put in a ditch for some neighbors. It was cold and I was in my Walls COver alls and digging in a pile. I decieded to get off and get my gloves out of the truck. To get off the hoe you have to be an acrobat. I was getting lined up and swung my leg behind the seat and folded it out of the way and stepping down the hammer loop on my cover alls hung the swing and hoist lever of the hoe as I had gotten pastthe point of no return. THis thing was idled up a bit and as I stepped off I reallized iI was hung up and was just gonna fall and not try to fight it too much. when I hit the ground running that outstretched boom and bucket hit me in the arse end into a big ole pile of manure and soil. One that happened at work before we got our reactivation permit from DEQ we had to haul waste the the RedBay AL landfill. Its a small city rubbish site and te main operator was out. THe city Mechanic was on the dozer and had ripped a tilt line on the old D6. Instaed of just straight blading the tip off and letting me dump he changed the line. While I was waiting it rained and I was down a slight slope in a 72 steel nosed DM mack rolloff. Well mister mechanid didnt want to push me out or use my cable and tow me out with the dozer . He gets in his truck and goes to get a 555 NH TLB. I hooked the cable and he snaked me up the hill a one pull at a time. Instead of leaving the chain looped around the bucket and moving himself up with the hoe he would turn half around i nthe seat and push the shuttle forward and jerk itback to neutral when he got close to out of chain. I told him just ease up with the boom and lave the riggers down . Nope been running a hoe for a year and a 24 year old wasnt telling him nothin I got in the truck and was easing up in low gear as he was pulling me. I had an image in my had how many ways this could go wrong. the second to the last pull before I got to gravel road. He was sitting strapped in his seat belt sittin halfway round and about 3/4 throttle. He hadnt throttled the hand throttle back any and he didnt have alot os slack in the cable. When he liffted his riggers he bumped the shttle foraward and it took off when it ran out of slack it snapped iom bakwards with his hand on the shuttle and as the jerk caused his seat to swing all the way back and lock in the hoe operators position but as he was swinging back He jerked the shuttle back to. So there he was strapped in the seat backwards going almost full throttle in reverse flailing his arms like a dumb a## headed towards my old Mack truck. I had hair lipped the passenger fender the day before on a rebar THat had been hanging out of a smaller dumpster. I saw this out stretched boom comming for the cab and and radiator and I clutched it and cut the wheels to the right and gave him the hairlipped fender. When everything stopped we pulled the fender off the tire and I got the hoe off the truck and pulled myself up the hill. I still remeber that vividly lol.
I've got 2 stories. 1st: I used to operate a CAT 236B skidsteer with hydraulic quick-attach at a materials yard. We had a 1yd bucket for mulch and a 1/2 yd bucket for compost and topsoil. This guy in a Dakota kept coming in for 1/2 yard of topsoil at a time. It was probably his 3rd trip of the day at this point. Well I'd been loading trucks without incident for probably 2 months at this point so I knew everything there was to know about it. I didn't check that my quick connect pins had engaged the bucket and when I went to dump the bucket of topsoil into the guy's truck the bucket went with it. 2nd: I have a little lawn tractor I use to pull my wood splitter around behind the shop at the family business where I keep all my firewood. I was getting tired of blowing up the tires on that mower because they were constantly going flat. I knew my father kept a gallon of tire sealant in his service truck over by the grinder. I knew where that was been over that way a million times. Well I grabbed the sealant put it in my truck bed and went to flip the truck around so I could leave. All of a sudden there's a loud BANG and the truck quits moving. I pull forward a few feet and hop out. Backed into the loader bucket. Awesome! ointhead Bottle of tire sealant ended up costing me $2300 for a new flatbed to put on my truck. (it was a pickup box before I backed into the loader) That being said.... the tires on that mower hold air to this day.
was it a Monday LOL . Good story you are right slow down.
Oops sorry guys i was replying to story # 3
Well..........quess I have to admit I'm not perfect either. back about 15 yrs ago,I was with my dad finishing up a job. We needed to load the vibrating plate packer in the back of the pickup truck. My dad was in the TLB and told me to pull the pin on the quicktach. Having done this a couple million of times, didnt think anything of it. He swung the plate packer over the tailgate to put it in the bed and it fell off. Smashed the &*() out of the tailgate. All i could do was chuckle a bit.. boy was the old man pissed at himself. The truck was only about 4 months old and needed a new tailgate.ha ha ha. ( I'm sure this has never happened to anyone else)
Got my first job excavating job a few months ago! I was running a haul truck (Deere 250D) back and forth dropping off dirt at a dump area, a good quarter mile from where they were digging. Ran into some mud right up on a creek bank, tried to back out but couldn't (I hadn't been trained on the machine, just told to "get up there and move it!", so I didn't know to turn on the diff lock). Went back, got another guy in the wheel loader. Went back to the truck and it had slipped into the creek! Guess I forgot to set the parking brake. After a few hours of pulling with a Deere 650 dozer AND hitachi 200 AND 120 excavators... we FINALLY got it free. The ice on the creek had caved in the grille, smashed the (fiberglass?) hood, dinged up the air intake, and crushed all the coolers. I volunteered to take a huge pay cut and work it off, but the owner let me go. He probably was right... but I still miss driving it. Sad part was, he never believed me, thought I drove it into the creek for some reason.
Wow, that's a serious case of bad luck and misfortune. If somebody had just told you about the diff lock, huh. Lot of lessons learned in a short time. Look at the bright side....now when you go to a new company you can actually say you "have experience". Sounds like you liked the job, so stay at it and find another.
That sucks! As a boss I would be kicking my own *** so bad! Its my fault for not having trained you. It is so easy to forget that not everyone knows what you know and take for granted. Its a good lesson for site supervisors... Don't assume anything with a new hire. Show them everything, and put them with someone who can train them on the job for a few hours. Its money well spent.
When I was young running a grader with no brakes, grading a logging road up a hill, owner op skidder skidding down the road to a landing at bottom. I met him halfway up the hill decided to get out of his way by backing down, then decided was going too slow tried to shift up, missed, free wheeled down backwards, cut on one side drop on other. Didn't want to put blade down for fear of ripping it off. Had to sit at bottom for a bit to stop shaking, he says " Im not in that much of a hurry". Watched one of the best cat skinners I have ever known fuel up his d8 then back over the pickup. I always try to remember where I started, but will only try to help once, if you don't want help I won't. The old adage "learn something new everyday" is a real good attitude to have ( in my humble opinion )
While I agree in principal I have to disagree. When expensive equipment (that may be owned by the company writing the pay checks) or someone's health or life hangs in the balance you can't just walk away. You, legally have a duty to either teach the person in question or report them. If you don't do that you can be held as partially responsible for whatever happens, to include criminal charges and or subsequent law suits. It's called negligence. As in negligent homicide as an example. And you can bet good ole dumb azz will tell someone that so in so said something but that was it. Now if it's just a case of a guy not taking care of his stuff, yea once told that would be it. Please don't let pride lead to someone being injured of killed. Rick
"The ring of Fire. ... the ring of Fire! " We had our heavy trucks already parked around the oil well. The location was about an acre of a mixture of mud water and sweet green crude oil. The was no drilling rig or pumping unit (pump jack) there. This well had out lived it's usefulness. ....pumped dry......if you will. So it was an open hole......no well head or bop blow out preventer. Basically an eight inch pipe sticking out of the ground a few feet.......and open. The pipe did have a flange welded to it which I was to cut off with a torch. The purpose of the flange was for bolting the not there well head to. On one of our last jobs it was in the Red Desert and very hot outside. The case of beer we had was 110 degrees Fahrenheit in the shade and no ice? What to do?......drink it warm? I earnestly explained to my skeptical fellow rig pigs that I could turn p warm hot beer "Ice Cold" in one or two minutes? Sure Steve water to wine...scratch scratch. I set the case of liquid courage down reverently and opened the carton. "Time to lock and load girls" I had pulled the pin.... with a kung fun grip on the fire extinguisher I ground pounded that case of beer! The beer was "Ice Cold" by the time I emptied the fire extinguisher into it. I was a "Company Hero" and we celebrated. I should have Never showed them that trick. Now back to the...........................FIRE! Torch in hand I was to cut the flange or braiding head off the casing. I was standing in a muddy pit about three feet deep. No crude oil there it had been mucked out or shoveled out. Standard test procedure. ... hold your head away and wave torch over flange. So far so good. Well a spark flew away from the three foot deep eight foot diameter muck hole. Around this hole was mud water with crude oil on top surround by trucks. It was first light morning...we had just arrived in the 4wd The trucks were already there we left them there cold engines no air pressure to unlock the brakes and drive them away. The whole location lit up quick! "Get the Fire Extinguishers!" Running through mud and fire they got to the fire extinguishers some of them in the now beginning to burn trucks with sweet crude oil on the tires and rubber mud flaps. every one in turn point and shoot.......empty....allegations And... fire extinguishers didn't work like several. get the shovels and move them trucks. The ten wheel cement truck was closest and burning the best...burning rubber mud flaps had already melted the tail lights before I could drive it away I had to break loose a hard line hammer union which was hooked to another piece of equipment standing in two and three foot "spotty flames" low spots burning other not so much with a sledge hammer I broke loose the hammer union... screw the four inch rubber lines they were burning anyway and the truck ended up ripping them away. the other guys were helping more the other heavy trucks or helping curtail the fire with shovels. I got in that pump truck started it and let it rev it really wanted sixty pound of air to release those brakes while it was burning. After driving the pump truck out of harms way we managed to put out the fire. Amazing lee not a whole lot of damage for a wide area of Fire mud flaps tail lights surface scorched tires and some four inch lines. So we cleaned up a bit and went to the bar. we managed to put out the fire!
Well I did a dumb thing today. Not that that's too unusual! Was working on a 980G 3406 engine trying to cut down on some of the oil leaks. Last week was dropping the oil pan and replacing that gasket after fighting the counter weight bolts that have been in for over ten years. Today was going to be easy, replace replace upper and lower valve cover gaskets. Upper covers come off easy. When I went to remove the lower housings found that the aftercooler and thermostat housing were just a tad too close and housing would not come out. Oh well, probably not a bad idea to replace the thermostat. The found that the pipe from turbo to aftercooler would not let the rear housing out. Those yellow intake orings sure like to stay in place after ten years! Once all the extra work was done I temporarily installed the housings and valve covers to keep internal parts clean in what can be a dusty shop. Picked off the front cover and housing as a unit to clean the top of head one more time and put a dab of sealant on the joint in the lower housing gasket. As I rolled the assembly to clear the after cooler I hear what can only be described as the Pinball Machine sound of a 5/16 valve cover bolt making it's way down through internals of a 3406 Last sound I heard was the thunk of the bolt hitting the bottom of the aluminium pan. Good thing is I had not put oil back into the engine so I was at least sure the valve cover bolt made the full trip. First thought is,"Do I have to take out the 40 pan bolts including those nasty ones above the rear axle just to find the bolt?" Being a bit on the lazy side decide to try something else first. Take out the 1 inch pipe plug from the left front corner of the pan. Slip small telescoping magnet in and on second try guess who is stuck to the magnet?:notworthy All in all what could have been hassle cost all of 5 minutes to correct. Valve covers are now on and torqued, no one getting inside again
And how many lottery tickets did you buy at lunch, kshansen?
None I figured I'd used up all the luck I had for that day! Just glad the shop was nice and quite at that time so I heard what had happened and that I droped it in the front of the engine where the deep sump is not the back where there is a shallow area with a small pocket things couild get caught in. Also helped that the pan was aluminum so only thing magnet would grab was the bolt.
If I was to tell about the screw up I did about 35 years ago while changing the oil in a D398 Cat gen set the EPA would be knocking on my door. What the heck probably a statue of limitations on that one. As I recall the gen set took about 110 gallons of oil. After draining the oil out and cafefully catching it in old drums. I then changed the filters and preceeded to pump by hand the first barrel of oil in. Just as I finished the first barrel can anyone guess the step I had missed?
drain plug :shf
Well actually a drain valve then the pipe was capped off, or should say was supposed to be!
I've been awful fortunate throughout my career, I usually get to clean up the messes of others and I get to learn from their misfortune so I don't do the same. However my biggest blunder to date happened a few weeks ago, I was in my cherished M318D and we just started a bridge job and we were clearing and grubbing. Down along the the creek bank was some trees I had to pull out and clean up, so I went down over a 2:1 about 10 feet high. I checked the ground before going down and it seemed hard like any creek gravel area is, I proceeded to work for about 10 minutes and all of a sudden it was like I fell through ice. I ended up punching through about 1' of frost and into some silt, to about the top of the tires, no big deal really. I pulled myself 10' before I decided it was best to get a dozer to help. It got to the point where everyone started throwing their $.02 in, do this, do that and blah blah blah. A couple guys wanted me to stuff some trees in there to act as a courderoy road but I said no as to all the branches and stuff getting into the driveline and hydraulic hoses and causing more damage. So we hooked a 930 and a D3 together and got 20' and she wouldn't go no more. So at this point the Superintendent wanted me to stuff some medium rip-rap in there and try to get up on it, I himmed and hawed and they browbeat me into it, I wasn't crazy about the idea as I've been under these machines and know how delicate they are underneath. However at this point I said, hell lets try it. We got a few more feet then she got high centered on a rock, the rock drove the drive shaft into the gearbox above it and broke the whole works. So now we're screwed, cutting the drive shaft and hooking to a wrecker. It was a long afternoon, I guess I should have stuck to my guns and said no to the rocks but hindsight is 20/20. We drug it onto the lowboy and sent her to main shop, 'twas a sad day for sure. I sure did feel like hell for a few days afterwards, but I must say, the owner of the company came out a few days later and basically said you can't make an omelette without breaking an egg, we shook hands, I said I was sorry and we moved on. He sure is a stand up guy, there's no doubt about it.
Wow, What a bummer. It just goes to saying...stick to your own ideas. I'm sure there were 20 safety vests and helmets managing the whole show and you wanted to get the hoe out as soon as possible. That's the other thing, good for the bossman, for not freaking out. CD
bigshow, Sorry to hear about you M318D Hope they fix it up right and get it back to you real soon. At least the boss seems to be a stand-up kind of guy, good luck, send pictures if you can stand to take them!
The pictures don't make it look that bad, however they won't be making the internet rounds.
I should take some under side pictures of a 350 that I am having the "pleasure " of working on this week. It's a 1996 model but that is still no reason for the scars on the underside I'm seeing!:Banghead We are replacing most of the drive hoses that I made the "mistake" of pointing out to the boss a couple weeks back. To unhook the hoses from the motor on the right side the only option was the blue tip wrench Not sure if the guards have been of more than once since new:Banghead Heavy rust scale everywhere.
I'm a calculated cautious guy by most standards, but I did this (see picture) over the weekend in my haste to get a rebuilt engine installed. I was "double checking" clearance before lowering the engine in to it's final spot.....and after reviewing the pictures a friend took, saw this one to my surprise. I know better and still did it. I can rationalize that the forks would hit the engine if the hydraulics gave out, but it's still a no no.
Might be the camera angle but look like the forks are tipped down in the front too! Would not want to have an accident and make a mess out of that nice clean machine!
Well yesterday I did one that qualifies me for a dope slap! Working group leader came and got me because the 769D up and quit. Driver said it died when he shifted it into gear after he had got out to talk to the other haul truck driver. Went down and took a look. Batteries looked okay, terminals not corroded and nice and tight, could use a bath but no fuzz growing anywhere. Turned on key switch and dash lights up gauges do the full sweep thing and everything looked normal. Turn key to start and expect the pre-lube pump to take off, nothing. Fist thought is the relay for it is bad. jumper the input wire to the large batt. terminal and pre-lube pump takes off like normal. Still will not crank. Now quick check of starter and with remote starter button hooked up and key on engine cranks right over running like normal. Put in gear and nothing happens. Then think to check for codes on the monitor panel, don't have them at home but at least one was not shown in the list of the wiring diagram but when I did a Google search came up with some references to lack of communication between engine and transmission. Opened dash to access the ignition switch to be sure it was functioning properly, seemed fine. I had checked the wiring diagram and seems the relay that powers the transmission ECM is in compartment behind cab. Start the engine to try and lift body to make access easier, no hydraulics DANG. Well it's not too tight so I remove rear cover from cab and start trying to locate the transmission relay. Did not seem to be getting power. While sitting in that hole looked at the back of fuse panel and just for kick started seeing what was hot. Found one on the bottom right looking from the back that did not seem to be working. Asked the working group leader what the label said. To get a clear look at it he had to slid the seat way forward. Wouldn't you know it was not labeled at all! Then he said there is one on the other side that has a little gear picture next to it. He went to wipe off some dust and the cap for the little gear one fell off. Took out the fuse and it was blown, probably do to a poor connection from being loose. Long story short once the bad fuse was replaced and locked in right truck started and ran like it should. Guess I should have thought to check all fuses first! I got off on the wrong path because I had power to the key switch and made the fatal mistake of ASSUMING the wrong thing.
My first full time driving / operating job was for an old drunk. Nice guy, but didn't take care of anything. He owned an old Ford cabover single axle dump and Ford skiploader. I was just 18, wet behind the ears, and got the job through a friend. The first day I worked for him (hadn't even met my new boss yet) I picked the truck up from the shop, early in the morning and in the dark. It broke down in less than a city block. After the mechanic got me going I headed up in the hills above Hollywood to haul dirt for another guy. Coming back down the hill (first load), I put on the brakes and the cab flopped forward, pinning me up on the windshield along with my lunchbox and toolbox! Luckily, at the bottom of the hill there was a "t" intersection with an ivy uphill on the other side. I went up the hill (still on the windshield) until gravity took over and flopped the cab back down, throwing me and my now-open toolbox and lunchbox up on the shelf behind the front seat. All of this took place in front of a driver of a brand spanking new Kenworth dump. He was standing on the battery box, cleaning the windshield when I went by (twice) missing the front of his truck by a foot or so. I don't know who was more freaked out...me or him! If that wasn't enough, when I was getting on the freeway (same load) the truck overheated, blowing off the radiator cap and the lid on the shelf behind the seat, filling the cab with steam.
Jnb That's the funniest thing I've heard all day
JNB That definitely makes for a memorable first day on the job. I hope it got better after that though.
Not with that employer. He wouldn't fix anything on the truck or the skip. Everyday was a greasy adventure. About six months later I got on with the company the guy in the KW drove for, Hayden Bros. Engineering out of Sun Valley. That was a great company to work for. I learned a lot there from some excellent operators.
I ran over a creeper with a long truck Drop lights don't count. In my defense I've never taken out a garage door. But I've punished a few. (There's still time ) How come the guy's under fourty never confess anything? :beatsme:beatsme
I was tired and decided to check into a lonely motel in the middle of nowhere. When suddenly all the lights go out! ? Did they go to bed ? ...or was it because of the wires I took out with the top of my rig.
Maybe its because the guys under 40 are still on probation by us old farts.
or could it be we just don't make mistakes!!! LOL everyone has made a mistake at sometime or another, now where they own up to it or not is a different story!!
Make no mistake! I have messed up a lot of stuff and I am still shy of 40. The third members have blown up in my last three service trucks and the only common denominator seems to be me. Maybe its just that I have been doing this for 15 years and my other hands have 1.5 and .5 years in the truck.
or the statute of limitations hasn't run out yet.
Potholes...blame it on the potholes!
I'm just over the 40 mark and fubar'd too many things to keep track of.
It might be from the older guys being more secure in their jobs and hoping someone can learn with out doing . It's that way for me .
Wow, who needs joke of the day with this thread to read. I'm sure if I think about it there'll be plenty more, but this one is first. About 15 yrs ago, I was working with my dad. We had the old 1080B at the time. Rails were shot, every time you turned you had to pick up one side or the other to get the rail back under the rollers. We were hauling rip rap out of farmers fields in the wintertime. So, it's about 9 pm, on a Friday night, been dark for hours, finally old man says good enough for the day. But, he wants to move the hoe to the next pile. So, instead of walking it back about a quarter of a mile to the approach, I decide to just walk along the road, down in the field. So, I'm happily clanking along, on top of the snow, when I realize I'm not on top of the snow anymore. What's worse, there is water in my tracks. And cattails. So, I try to get the tracks pointed towards the road so I can just climb up onto the road. Begin to attempt the jump turn maneuver. Run the idler right out of the rail. So there I sit, in about 3' of snow on top of 18" of water and sunk into the mud. And we have to put a track back on. &#%# my life. Took us about two hours to get the track back on, now the damn thing won't climb the ditch to get onto the road. So, off the old man goes to find the county blade man to bring the blade out to help pull it back onto road. Reason being was biggest machine we had besides this hoe is a little 1150E dozer. THAT'S not going to pull it up the ditch, especially on frozen road. By this time, it's almost midnight, I'm soaked past my knees, covered in mud, and ready to just walk away. Blade shows up, can't get me up the ditch. So, off the old man goes to get rubber-tire. 30 miles away. When he gets there, we had to dig a ramp up the inslope of the road to get the hoe to walk up. Had to have the backhoe with the frost bucket because road was froze too hard for the excavator to get through. For at least the next 5 yrs, any time I ran into a county employee, they asked me if I'd been fishing with an excavator lately.
That is funny,now lets see,what is the dumbest thing that I have done...........now lets see,which one?? I was washing one of our loaders one time while working for a ready mix supplier,it was a Trojan 4000 with an 8V53 in it and the muffler on those was mounted horizontally on the side of the engine nacelle with a bologna cut stack from the muffler which was pointed right at me while standing on the wash rack hosing it down.I thought that maybe filling up the muffler with water and watching all the carbon blow out when I started it up might be fun so that is what I did. Nobody ever knew why that engine locked up and I was so ashamed that I never told anyone,I still feel bad about it.Now that is only one,let me tell you about...............Ron G
I once drove my 922 loader off a small wooden creek bridge... It had the original sheet metal canopy... If it rolled I would not be here today, instead it got stuck, one rear wheel still on the bridge, two front wheels on the ground.. I learned that day having working steering and working brakes is handy... It scared all the **** out of me... I was hooning along the road not thinking and the bridge came up.... I hit the brakes, they only worked on one side, so it pulled the loader to one side and I half went over the approach and the bridge... No damage to me other then a cut lip, loader damage was the cabin got bent out of shape just from the sudden stop.. The loader then got installed with a ROPS, steering rebuilt and brakes rebuilt... I have made more money now to pay for those repairs, compared to the amount of money I would have made if I got killed that day...
I two blocked the hell out of my boom truck the other day in the middle of a job. Not terribly but enough to where i had to boom down flat and give the block a good hard yank to get it out of the boom sheave. Not proud but **** happens
I was loading dirt with a 5130 shovel onto Euclid 190's. I was walking up to the dig face, where there was a root ball hanging over the edge out into thin air. As I got to the dig face, that root ball started moving. I had a truck backing in on my left, so I start swinging to my right to get away from it........it came through the window and laid in the walk way beside the seat. A trip to the ER to make sure I didn't have any glass in my eyes and some super glue to stop a couple of bleeders and all was good. Trees can be unpredictable
For a short while I worked for construction outfit as a mechanic/driver. One afternoon I was moving a 953 to a building site on a three axle beaver tail tag trailer. I unchained dropped the ramps climbed on and fired it up raised the bucket. Along came the property owner to ask questions that I knew nothing about, I couldn't hear him so I shut the 953 off to talk to him. When he was done I fired it back up and for some reason raised the bucket some more. I idled forward and when I got to the tipping point-. Well I stood the tracks damn near vertical, shut it off and was afraid to fart for fear it would go the rest of the way over. Thankfully it slowly rocked back down straight on the deck. Why I raised that bucket was because my attention was broken by stopping to talk. Always finish what your doing-To hell with cell phone calls and worthless discussions. It could mean you or someone else their life.
....i head butted a co worker in the Millwright Shanty no we weren't wearing helmets
I guess I will spill it ......... About two years ago I was out running service calls ,went to a old brewing company for the last one of the day. Pulled straight in which I never normally do, usually look for obstructions and angle my truck to pull forward and not back out of a job. Well I didnt, fixed the customer up. Cranked the service truck and looked , backed up turned to the right slightly and WHAM !!! Right into a yellow damn pole about 4 ft tall inthe middle of the parking lot. Took the a** chewing and they replaced the door and step on my service truck. Two weeks later on a holiday weekend I borrowed a chop saw ..... The yellow pole is now in my garage!
Thirty years ago the night I bought the Power Wagon, it wasn't registered, so I opted to stiff hitch it twenty miles home rather than drive it. I had no vehicle with adequate hitch, so I borrowed a truck. Soon after starting toward home it began to pull sideways. I blamed the stiff steering in the antique for its refusal to follow. After six miles of 140 from East Wallingford, I was pulling onto Route 7. I felt something let go! I figured out it wasn't connected to safety chains either, and goosed it to get out of the way. The truck rolled across route 7, by some miracle there were no parked cars across the street. It went across 7, over the sidewalk, mowed down a lilac bush, across a lawn, turned back to 7, missed a power pole by inches, and crossed the road again, over the sidewalk again, and came to rest a foot from a stone building. Turned out the difficulty was about a stuck rear brake on the tow vehicle. Ultimately, I decided driving the unregistered vehicle home was safer than towing. Willie