Long long ago when I was a younker, I was helping a friend pull the rear diff on a triaxle. I knew nothing about dump trucks and very little about wrenching. Bed up, him on one side, me on the other between the tandems, one foot in front of the other. Both of us turning out u joints and diff bolts. The max extend cable was in the way, the one that pulls the valve to neutral when the cylinder hits max stroke. I didn't know, so I asked him "if we bump this cable will the bed come down?" He said "no, it only pulls the valve to neutral, see?" AND HE PULLED IT. One heartbeat, I see the bed start down and hear a rush of oil thru the line, two heartbeats, I begin to raise up, reach across and push his head, three heartbeats SLAM, the bed is down. Nothing....no sounds, no screams....And I ask "are you alive?"..... And he says "You better come'ere". You can all see this, see it as it happens, here the slam and feel the sick rising in your throat. I ran around the *** of that truck to see him standing, unhurt, whole, not bleeding. IN HIS SOCKS. His work boots were still between the tandems, one in front of the other. I SHOVED HIM OUT OF HIS BOOTS !!! My lesson? BLOCK IT UP!!! Block it, chain it, support it, do something to make it safe. If you don't know, take a minute, crack the books. Think about what can or could happen. If you take a minute and think, and remember, none of us should be alive....
i was doing all the oil services a few weeks ago, bed block in the rest and setting there. Thank you for reminding me why. I have had a few close calls in aviation mostly. Don't trust the other guy to do the right thing there.
I was new to the game, and was working on the gates of a R-Way belly dump, electric over air gate valve. Landing legs are welded to the front of the gates, NOT attached to the frame of the trailer. The means to lock the gates out was there, but I did not sense the need. Tractor was nowhere near under the thing, when I applied the appropriate voltage to the valve, at a REALLY inappropriate time....Air system charged, of course. When the gates opened, the trailer pogo sticked, or pole vaulted about 6 feet left. Landed MOSTLY on the leg/belly, but a little on my co-workers' high dollar tool box. No human was injured, but one human's pride and wallet got the **** beat out of 'em for a while....
Tire safety. Something we all take for granted. Almost lost my head 'cuz i was too stupid to demand a cage. That and the rim was a half inch bigger than the tire.
not me, but someone at a job i worked at was looking for something to do, and tried taking apart a jetway two piece rim, without deflating it! They had no business messing with it. No training, no clue. They were so lucky.
Know of two that died as a bed settled on them unable to get away from it, know of one that was thrown from a dozer as it slid off a trailer sideways and was crushed by it, saw the after effects of a split rim killing a tire man. I am not one to slouch on short cuts either where have utilized 'Old Ways' to perform work and damned near lost an eye. Becomes a no excuse no brainer to working Smarter not faster and the work gets done just as fast.
I learned one from my great uncle. He ran a small excavation business when I was young and had an old Deere dozer (450/550 size, I don't remember). He was doing some site prep and went to get off the machine. He was around 70 and not as spritely as he used to be. Just as soon as both feet were on the track, the dozer started rolling forward. He went to move and his boot got caught in the track somehow. Just as the track was about to go over the idler, he got free and jumped off, hit and rolled away from the dozer. He sat there and watched it roll until it hit a tree. I don't remember if he hit the powershift lever and knocked in gear, or if the parking brake was shot and just didn't hold the machine anymore. Either way, I do remember the blade was off the ground, allowing it to roll. I get reminded of it often by my dad when I'm getting off equipment to ground the bucket/blade before exiting the machine.
I mentioned both of mine in the "What's your hoe doing?" thread but I was trying to pull down/knock over a tree on the property line. My son was on my lap as we reached up to a branch, maybe 6" in diameter, that I thought we could pull down. I hooked the bucket up over the branch and proceeded to lift the machine into the sky until the bucket wasn't hooked anymore and we slammed down pretty good. My son fell off my lap where he was pretty close to moving levers with his legs and doing who knows what to the machine in the process. Very scary. Also, before I realized that huge limbs will fall, I was pushing another very dead ash tree over, it had no limbs until probably about 50 feet up, and I gave the tree a shove. It started tipping over but came back and as I went to push on it again my hoe side windshield exploded from some pretty substantial sized branches that fell off. Next thing I know I'm covered in glass shards and felt real lucky it wasn't worse.
We all get tunnel vision. We don't see the "stupid" we're engaging in. (Even when we know better). The guy standing 100 feet away with the camera going, he knows, he sees it, but doesn't say anything. If he did, he couldn't get 200 views on YouTube.
Was doing a small logging job in early 90's single handed, running saw and Older style Link-Belt with long levers on the pedestal mounts to the floor. Had to be in and out of the machine constantly, so I got good (or dumb) at jumping from the cab clear down to the ground. Only issue was I had my big leather loose belt on that carried my wedge pouch and chainsaw bar tools. I guess the safety lockout lever didn't quite engage, and I lept out but didn't go far, as my belt went over the swing/arm lever. Instantly I was hanging from my waist in full swing mode with my legs hitting the tracks each quarter swing. I struggled to lift them up and re position enough to grab something and get safely out of the mess while swinging a few full turns. Time stands still at those moments, and the mind takes a weird quick deep journey to a lot of places in a scary situation. Of course the minute I got everything under control, I was most concerned that someone may have seen the logger going merry go round hanging out of the cab looking like a moron.
Thats why I rarely work alone when I run equipment. Not that someone could have pulled you off in that situation, but at least they could have called 911 right away. We were doing a roof job and the guys were BS'ing about what they would say if they started to fall off the roof. Best line said was "START THE TRUCK!!!!"
good subject on safety, never work alone. It would be a bummer for your family to have a survivable medical episode and lay there long enough to NOT survive it, let alone an accident. I won't do it any more. It does not have to be somebody from my company, just somebody around, from another contractor etc. If you can't, then text your friend or spouse and have them check in on you via phone or text.
Colson, when I was just a kid, an old farmer instructed me along those lines. He said if you're falling off the roof, just land on one leg. No sense in breaking them both!!!
@aighead dead trees are the biggest hazard. Glad you survived it. The kid on the lap thing we won't talk about........ I will say that my brother's friend Bart had a buddy in the back of his truck who decided to play around with him in the cab through the window. He fell to the pavement and Bart got to watch his head cave in.
@skadill that would be pretty scary! @skyking1 - Yeah, the kid on the lap was a good lesson. Seatbelt would've helped but I've now learned to just not do it.
These are great stories and lessons. We have a saying at work "learn from your mistakes, but it is far easier to learn from others mistakes". I was hauling a 85hp ag tractor to my place before we built a house and moved there. I had already loaded and unloaded this particular tractor without any problems, but on this day, I had a pretty heavy brushhog on the back. I parked on a slight downhill grade, put the truck in park and set the parking brake. Just as my rear wheels hit the ramps, I noticed that everything was moving. My mind momentarily froze as it tried to process what was happening. When my mind finally clicked in, I looked forward to see the rear axle of the truck several feet in the air and the truck, trailer, tractor, and me were all rolling downhill. You'd think with all the land around and nice pasture that we could have coasted to a nice gradual stop. Unfortunately, the oil company that had the lease had decided to park their old grader just off the road. The truck was headed right for the front wheel of that grader. I remember thinking well, this will stop us. Instead, that stupid F-250 decided to climb the front grader tire. Next thing I know, the truck is at a 45 degree angle and the trailer ball snaps. Me and the tractor roll down a now very steep trailer and the truck rolls over on its side. Nothing left to do but put a chain on the truck, pull it back over and drive it into town to buy a new trailer ball and drive back to the house. Thank the Lord no one was hurt or I didn't have my kids in the truck or something like that. Lessons learned: Always chock wheels, load/unload on level ground, consider what the worst thing that could happen is before doing a task.
Wow Brady that's a wild ride! I heard one similar story of a guy who was in a big hurry and forgot to latch the ball down. He and the backhoe and the trailer peeled off the truck and were going backwards away from it. Yes he had forgotten to do everything safety chains etc. Apparently it was a pretty good rollover accident in the ditch and he got hurt.
I've still got several units with dayton wheels (spoke hubs). First time I ever changed one, I took off all the lugnuts. Then, when prying at the tire didn't work, I got the big sledge and swung at the back of the tire. The rim clamp grazed my leg on it's way to never, never land. Never did find it. Man, can those thing fly.
I saw a guy do that with a 11k pound skid steer and a trailer that had no drop legs on the ramps. Skid steer hit the ramps, back of trailer went to the ground, nose came up and lifted rear of truck clean off the ground. Truck rolled forward a few feet before he got skid steer off the ramps. He kept backing up and eventually the truck and trailer came back to earth. The worst part is the guy knew that was going to happen and admitted it. My dad asked why he didn't carry a jack, cribbing, or jackstands to place under rear of trailer to stop the drop if he knew it was going to happen. No reply.
That said, ill admit my own: I forgot to latch a gooseneck trailer once when I was hauling bales and made the trip from farm to field and back to farm before it was caught. I unloaded from front of trailer first and got to where most of the weight was over the trailer tandems before it lifted off the ball and rolled backwards. I finished unloading and then re hitched the trailer. I got lucky.
I was cautioned on the ways of Cast Spoke hubs really early on, was watching a new guy, removed all the nuts, foreskin walked over and had him screw them back on a few threads, as finished he took a pound ball peen and rapped one, all six popped free, kids eyes were big as dinner plates. He had his face in the way with all the nuts off, got LUCKY.
I have alot of these stories. I was loading junk cars up i had a mini van about 4 feet off the ground i noticed that a chain i was lifting it with wasnt hooked good so i got a 3 foot chain so i could hook above the hook and below it so if some thing happen to the hook that wasnt hooked good this would bypass it and hold. I hooked the top hook and was about to hook the bottom one when the bad hook slipped some how the hook i was holding hooked into the chain. It didnt drop a inch makes you belive some one was looking out for me. Two things to learn set it back down if its not right and never put your fingers in a hook.
I was taught, "don't stick yer fingers where ya won't put yer pee-pee."
I drove a Grove RT ?? 50 ton crane out of the shop after welding on a new slew ring. The boss wanted to use it and a smaller pettibone to lift a jaw that was about to turn over in a washout. I was going to pull up from the down hill side along the wash out and get into place i lifted the boom up to clear the jaw way higher than i need to when i got close i taped the brakes and the crane like all big tired rigs do bounced around i was seating on the side over looking the washout seating high up with it bouncing around it scared me it didnt help that i had just got back to work after i had been in a bad wreck. Keep your boom low and outriggers close to the grown when in doubt.
Many years ago my brother and I were in the back 40 cutting dead trees for firewood. I was very inexperienced at the time but being 18 years old I knew it all and was invincible. Started cutting a big half rotton hemlock tree down while my brother looked on. For some reason I took a step back and a fraction of a second later the top half of the tree speared into the ground where I was standing, taking the saw into it’s final resting place out of my hands with it. Had I not moved it woulda been me piled into the ground. My brother saw it coming but couldn’t yell fast enough to warn me.
My worst was riding on one of our barges with a new crane on board. Tug skipper was taking us through the narrows ,when i looked up and saw the high tension wires which spanned about a mile to the island. At that moment it hit me ,we were running 100' of boom ,not the 60' we had made this trip hundreds of times before. From the view on the barge it looked like collision for sure with no time think what to do. Jump overboard,get in the crane ,hide up in behind the ramp ? In seconds we passed safely under ,with no sparks. Looking up like that it seemed collision with the wires was guaranteed. We got the chart out after and checked clearance. We were running close to one shore far from the belly of the span. If we had passed under the middle at the highest tide we would of had 26' according to the chart . Still was a serious heart stopper. To date i have seen that span ripped down twice ,at night by rigs bigger than mine . Night towing with no one on board and no damage to equipment i was aware of. Just a huge bill with Hydro for wires and towers .
Saddest story I read was a kid riding in a JD tractor with a cab. Somehow the kid moved and hit the door handle. Fell out and run over by the rear tire. Just posting this makes me sad thinking about it. I think the driver was charged, can't remember if it was a parent or other relative. I don't think being charged was necessary.
That duwmish dredge job in Seattle was under a big run of power lines. We couldn't do the close set when we were under them, and I can say now what I think of the day shift operator. He could have done the dredging out of those lines but he always left it for us to do at night, he was an *******.
We were loading a steel spar on a barge at Duke Point in the middle of the night one time. One of our customers had a fairly large Cat going on the same barge and our service manager agreed to have us load it for him. To start with we couldn't get it to fire up.Tug Skipper was getting antsy worrying about missing the tide to get up the Fraser river. Eventually got it going but by this time the tide was really low. Steep ramp,steel deck, steel tracks, big rush. All the stars aligned. Broke over the top of the ramp and away she went with no way to hold it back. It started to turn sideways and my first thought was it's gong through the brow log into water. My next thought was I'm not going with it. It's not mine and I don't have a dime in it. Worst they can do is fire me. I stepped onto the deck over the tracks on the high side and jumped. Thought I broke my wrist the way I landed. Lay there on the ramp and watched it go in a shower of sparks. The blade was low enough and the ramp steep enough that it tore up a bunch of decking when ii got to the barge. Of coarse still being in gear once on the barge it was on the move. Being at an angle it was heading off the side of the barge. The deckhand who was at the bottom of the ramp and had made a run out of the way when he saw this thing coming at him had the balls to run over get on the c-frame and then up onto the deck and get it stopped before it went over the edge. The Harbour Commission rep who was there to raise and lower the ramp for us insisted on taking me to the hospital to have my wrist X-rayed. My partner wouldn't load the spar unless there was 2 of us there so he sat and drank coffee on the tug till I got back. The stupidest part of the night was there were old tires there to tire the ramp for just this situation. We did use them to load the spar. And the Skipper missed the tide. D.D.
Back when the Steam Generators the Main Turbine sections and the Reactor Head arrived they applied a simple concept, Sink The barge until hard grounded then unload. Flooded to double bottom until resting on the bank and then the materials were hauled off, once away they pumped out the double bottom.
Not sure if I already posted it here but one that got my attention fast was walking on the frame behind the cab of an R-35 Euclid with box raised and no safety pins in the box. What really made the point was when I stepped on the control rod to the hydraulic control valve! Two things that probably saved me were first valve spool did not move enough to lock into the detents and second back them despite being more than a little stupid I did have fast reflexes and jumped to the ground fast.
After a few events got my attention I stopped tempting fate, for the most part!
Ice storm-straightening out a set of joints north bound I-82 mp 4 on the grade. Semi driver moving too fast come up on the scene and started to jack knife, trailer missed me by inches the WSP trooper told me that was on scene.
Seeing how fast I could take someone’s life (in war), learned lesson of don’t take your time for granted cause it’s not granted to always be there.
Not really an accident but hearing the tacks start breaking on a 10 ton plus 2 3/4" thick pressure vessel head 10' in diameter gets your attention pretty fast. Thankfully we heard it and knew what was happening and no one was injured. A wire feeder was mangled though and there was a big dent in the concrete. Never seen concrete dent before. I helped put the head back on. Had to use wedges, sledge hammers and other means to fit it. There was a lot of stress on it! The tacks were bridge tacks where you take a piece of 1/2" round bar, about 2" long, and put in the bevel. Then you weld each side of the round bar. You don't want to burn away the edge of the bevel. I had the job of welding the Mig root pass and then doing a 7108 hot pass before it went to the submerged arc boom. I spent more time grinding the darn tacks out because they were are all 4-6" apart around the whole head! Weld 4", grind, weld 6" grind, etc. Could have been much worse when the head fell off and not really anyone's fault. The tacks were good for hours before they started breaking.
I feel your pain on that one DD. Spent a few dark nights in the rain on that Duke Point barge ramp either working on it or pumping out sinking scrap barges.
Don't listen to a customer when it comes to your safety. Not construction equipment, but an automobile. Instead of going home and getting my truck that had the proper jack, stands, etc.... I listened to a customer and came over in my pov. Used their scissor jack to lift the car. I had placed the tire under the frame for a safety catch if the jack breaks. Customer was whining that it might scratch the tire and rim laying down. After enough nagging, i slid the tire out from under the car and laid it up against a tree. went back to work. low and behold.... the jack broke pinning me under the car. After 5-6 minutes later I came to and somehow managed to pull myself out from under the car. Went to ER. All the custome rcared about was when I could get back to fix her car, not that I almost died. Never risk your safety!!!!!
I think the car would have more than few scratches or maybe the customer would!
I have contractors challenge me regarding trench safety when it interferes with the precious schedule. I have zero bleeps to give in that regard. If I can't go down in the trench and feel comfortable I am not letting my guys in there. They might try to push it too, till they understand that I will have them fired off the job. This is my way of saying that the scariest thing that happened to me didn't happen. If anything would have happened in the trench I am thinking of I would be gone. Since then I've wised up.
Just the other day saw a utility worker in a fairly narrow trench from a TLB about up to his shoulders. Nothing but dirt around him. It was right beside the road. When should shoring be put in place? Is there a test for how stable the soil is? Have seen stories where a trench collapses and they have to dig someone out.
4' everywhere. I will trim the ground down for a while if I'm able to get a trench in at less than 4 ft that way, but I won't bench it. A lot of people think bench is acceptable but the pressure is still there and unless you cut it way back things can fall off that higher bank and end up in the hole with the guys. I would much rather have them working at the bottom of a slope that they can walk up and down if I can't put in shoring practically.
I'm glad most of these are decades old. Mine is from last month, it's a reminder that I'm always between the last close call and the next close call. I had seized steer cyl. pins on this skidder, After lancing the center out I wanted to press the pin from below, normally I'd grab a hydraulic bottle jack, instead I put a big air bottle jack under that pin. I aired it up and gave the pin one tap with a sledge.....it turns out that air can be compressed! I looked up and saw the pin higher than the roof! Quite happy I didn't catch it with my face. Here's my calculated trajectory of the pin
There is no test, there is no " that is good enough ". If you want to classify soils you have to be an engineer for that purpose. Best practices to treat all soils as class c, and act accordingly. Undisturbed soils will stand up like a slot cut in wood, if there's any binder in it. It can also collapse and those kinds of ditches lull people into a false sense of security. The other thing that happens is you'll be digging parallel to another trench that was dug many years ago, and let's say your four feet down and 2 ft over from that trench, that entire loaf of dirt between you and that other trench can fall in in one piece. All you have to do is be buried up to your belt to die. The pressure from the soil is so tremendous, that it will restrict your ability to breathe even down there that low on your body.
Thank you for that shyking1. The utility could have been reported for unsafe work practices or trench practices. It looked more than 4' deep to me but maybe was close.
I had one job maybe 12 years ago with this company that I'm back with and the dirt guys kept going by and giving me the stink eye. I had measured the trench before proceeding to have the plumber put the pipe in it was right there at 4 ft. The problem was I had this little Guatemalan Indio plumber who was probably 5' 0 in tall. I went over to the dirt guys on the next pass and said look guys this isn't an illegal trench it's an illegal plumber
Better than the overweight plumber who can't pull his pants up high enough. There should be a law about how much crack can be exposed!
Been in 2 cave ins one was in a box the other was by myself 9 feet deep what's worse was I new I was questionable on that and the backfill to the sewer tap stuffed off into my ditch as I was uncovering the seert tap with a shovel I saw it coming and got out of the way A 3 foot deep ditch broke a plumbers leg when I fell in and if your in a violent cave in to a little past waste deep it can push your guts out your mouth if you get into to your waste and spend more than a few minutes that way the blood poisoning from loss of circulation will usually give the individual a heart attack There is no good answer with excavations at 5 foot you need shoring or sloping I would say benching is acceptable if you dimension your bench to angle of repose for the soil classification it's faster and easier than sloping but benches should be engineered per soil conditions the only thing osha will accept as standard practice is a slope no engineering required unless you exceed 20ft deep
My youngest son got one of his first jobs with a plumbing outfit that had thier own mini exc. They were your typical lowbudget outfit that paid low and cut corners. Ever time i talked to my son it was like drilling in safety in trenches, dont go in it if its an 1" over 4' or make them slope it 1 to 1 . Thankfully he didnt work foer them too long.
All this ditch talk and different depths makes me feel pretty fortunate for my buddy and the ditch we dug at his house. Pictures are shared somewhere here on HEF, but it was definitely deeper than 4'. I never really knew the dangers of working in trenches until pretty recently and it seems pretty sketchy. Thanks y'all.
If anyone is interested, OSHA has a training class on trench safety. I believe it is sub-part P. Probably can browse through it somewhere on the net.
@aighead you are welcome with great power comes great responsibility. It isn't just how much the machine can do it's the situation you can leave. In safety we talk about stored energy and the bank has a lot of stored energy! Just a couple years ago I called the county and OSHA about a job I went by where are the guys were down in a cut maybe 8 ft wide and 15-20 ft deep in these big Stones we call spanaway spuds around here. What they were doing was regrading existing utilities so that then they could come back and lower a road. It would have been no thing to do a scraper show and peel the hill down and do it right. Instead these guys are down there where a 50 lb Rock could pop out of the bank and end their life let alone a real cave in. It took too long but they finally shut the job down and figure out a way to make it safe. I frankly don't care if you're going to lose your ass on the bid if you don't care about your guys you should go out of business.
Regardless of losing your ass on a bid you will lose your ass guaranteed if osha fines you or you kill someone so losing your ass on the bid might be the cheapest and fastest solution
Had a close call with a cave in on one of my first basements many years ago. Two service trenches, about 10' apart. Dug one, backfilled it, dug other and as I started to backfill a massive part of the bank between the two let go, it was like 9' high bank, if someone was in the trench they would have been dead absolutely no question about it, and I was in there only maybe 45 minutes prior. Was a big wake up a call, and good lesson about banks that I thankfully didn't learn the hard way. 5' is legal here, over the years i've got where I know when i'm digging if the dirt is stable and what i'm comfortable going in. For virtually all my sewer and water trenches I keep the 5' bucket on to make it safer, and bench down the sides. Problem is the bank against the city property is always going to be over 5' and you can't dig it to slope or bench it back, had some as deep as 13'. Did a repair a few weeks ago 13' down no possible room to bench or slope so rented a trench box, they sure are handy. It's amazing how dumb some people are though, the customer figured I was going to do the repair without a trench box, a hole 13' down only 4'x6' in size, ya let's just dig my own grave..... A temp worker got buried and died here a few years ago, contractor went to jail I believe, and even the builder got it really bad. One "new Canadian" company I watched doing services here they had a 2' wide trench it was 12' down easy, no slope or benching and they were driving the 200 hoe back and forth at the top while guys were in the trench. Baffled they haven't killed someone yet.
speed shoring is the bomb for those jobs. You have to know how to use it safely, but it can be made to work where nothing else will.
It was build a box shoring, somewhat time consuming to assemble but works awesome.
Build-a-box here, used it for this 23000 pound grease interceptor base set.
Seems like it happens to a plumber or two every year here on a new housing development. Personally I've had a few close calls rigging plate steel, clamps, magnets, most of the time if we're close to it we're just gonna weld on a temp lifting point.
Some good reading here Two years ago, I'm going to load the backhoe on the trailer like so many other times. The difference is the batteries are weak in the dump truck so once started I didn't want to shut it off. The dump is a single axle with juice breaks, and parking break is on the drive shaft. It works just not great. Place the truck/trailer "mostly level" and set the break. The ramps on the rear are on the ground so that should help hold it "right". Up I go and just as it just gets up the weight moves forward enough to lift the ramps just enough. The whole rig starts to roll backwards. I drop the bucket, set the break and jump off and get in the truck to stop it. Weak bats or no weak bats, the truck is shut off and in gear
Oofta. Could have been a real bad deal
The drive line brake reminds me of a close encounter of the dangerous kind. It was a Saturday and I was coming home from a job way up in the Snoqualmie tree farm. It was an excavator that got a rebuilt pump that had to be adjusted properly. The machine was up about six miles basically on a cat trail. First gear the last three miles, steep and on shale type rock that was sharp. The job was done and I had got back down to I90 and was heading west up the hill out of North Bend when the left rear inside dual blew out. Pulled over, set the parking brake and had the tranny in first gear when I looked underneath the truck. The spring clip bolt that holds the spring leaves in line had lost the nut and worked its way out into the side wall of the tire and wore through it. At any rate I proceeded to put the bottle jack under the axle and started the process of lifting the tires up for changing when the truck rolled off the jack. It hadn't occurred to me that a drive line brake is useless when one tire is lifted off the ground. Two things were in my favor. The first is that the tranny was in gear. The second is that I was in front of the tires on the up hill side. I guess I was too stupid to realize that I was lucky until a little while later. I brought the incident up at the next safety meeting and all of the rest of the field guys did the oh split kind of reaction. The service manager put wheel chocks in all the service trucks after that.
My Ram park brakes are ok with the truck on moderate grades. Trailer? Yeah no. Darling wife gets out to use the restroom while I sit with my foot on the brake. When the egts get down to low 300s I'll shut it off and go to the bathroom myself. I've learned to look for spots on the side of the road that are after a long downgrade so the engine is cool.
I had a driveline parking brake on the f650 I had in Texas. Pulled off the road, downhill to a closed gate. Set the brake, got out to open the gate, and as I started around the front of the truck it rolled into the gate. That was the last time I trusted it.
Never had time to be terrified but did teach me a lesson. DON"T TRAM WITH THE SPROCKETS AT THE FRONT.
You wouldn't be the first to be caught out with a driveline brake. Several years ago, a local rubbish collection company were up a steep driveway with an Isuzu NPR. The driveway was wet, and when the hydraulic bin lifter on the rear gave the truck a shake, the rear wheels broken traction and the truck headed down the driveway, launched off a retaining wall at the bottom and nosedived onto the main road. It's amazing nobody else was caught up in it. I had similar in an old truck with one wheel on grass. Luckily, it only rolled forward a few meters. IMO driveline brakes on trucks are downright dangerous.
Geez Tones, that's gotta wreck your day.
It was a fair while ago since that happened. My injured pride still hasn't healed.
This one hits home. A number of years ago we were loading out to come home from Colorado where we had been elk hunting. I was towing my 30 ft enclosed gooseneck that did double duty as a hunting shack and as my Unimog transport. My 406 Unimog only has a couple inches of clearance and once loaded I would have to crawl out the back cab window. We were parked on the mountain trail near the highway as we pulled the trailer out empty before loading the Mog for the trip home. The road was covered with snow and ice and running slightly downhill to the highway and then a 40 ft. drop off on the other side. The truck was parked in neutral with the parking brake on. I had loaded the Mog many, many times before with no issue. My BIL was standing in front guiding me as I inched it in. I seen the landscape moving out the open side door behind the BIL. I waved franticly at him as he kept motioning at me to keep coming. The tires had started skidding on the icy road as the rear of the truck lightened up. I was chasing reverse and trying to back out when my wife jumped into the cab and hit the brakes stopping us. My BIL nearly fell down. It started moving so gently that he never noticed. I had taken the hubs out before I loaded the Mog so I wouldn't forget and have to stop up the road. Maybe we would have stopped once the rear truck tires hit the asphalt? I hope we never find out, but in any event I wouldn't have wanted to be sitting on that heavy traffic, truck road, sideways at the base of a steep mountain downhill. After that I always put it in low range 4 wheel drive and shut the truck off with the e-brake on.
Well said skyking1. You are 100% correct that all soils must be treated as class C soils unless an engineer has provided a written document stating otherwise. Buried to the belt has resulted in many fatalities from blood clots moving to the wrong places right after the person gets dug out. Dirt chest high results in death in only a couple minutes and often less from suffocation. Trench safety rules are there for a reason.
I've done stupid more than anyone else. Flipped a backhoe on its side, left it propped up on one stabilizer. Happened so fast I couldn't grab something. I got tossed under it. At worst, a bit of road rash. I was offering a 10' X 10' square frame of 9" I beam to frame a fuel tank shed. I had it suspended on a utility tractor loader. It snagged on the ground & came toward my seat. Mangled the exhaust. I near had 500 LBS of steel in my lap. Pushed down a 50' tall dead pine with a dozer. Top ten feet of trunk came out, landed on the air intake 2' from me. Wood splitter spit out a block I was cutting sideways to test power. Popped me in the nose. Ripped my nose off top down, didn't quite tear it completely away. 6 cracks in my skull radiating outward from the bony hole where cartilage had been attached. Still stuffy at night. Safety begins with thinking. All the safety gear in the book will only contain the mess if you do something truly stupid.
Yes & trailer ramps should have a foot extends under the trailer. I've had a wild ride when the trailer tongue lifts the spring brake equipped axle off the ground. Better ramps, better linkage to the trailer cure this phenomenon. Blocking ALL tires also helps.
The jailed contractor was the lucky one here. He is a lot better off than the worker he killed and the employees family that was left hurting.
Breaking chain saw safety rule #1 on a daily basis - Never Work Alone With A Chain Saw. I have NO employees and I work alone 99% of the time. It's up to me to survive so I always try to think several steps ahead and follow some good safety measures if I am going to break rule number 1. I'm pretty good about wearing safety gear when using my 385XP. It's the only saw I carry and it is unforgiving. 1) That day that I tripped while carrying a running saw and went head over heels with my head hitting the saw bar - I ALWAYS set the chain brake when the cut is finished and the hard hat saved my head. Simple safety rule that I set in my ways early in saw operations - the brake is there to be used when the saw is not cutting. 2) That day the running saw slipped onto my thigh just above the knee - cut right through my jeans but drew NO blood because the saw chaps did what they were designed to do. Gear or gore - you make the choice. 3) That day I did not refuse to help a "buddy" take down a 36"+ red oak on a right of way clearing job. The night before, I tried talking him into using my "open face cut method" that I was introduced to at a timber school. The bore cut and setting the hinge operation would have clued him into the rot within the tree and we could have approached the problem tree differently. Instead, he used his usual method and we set his 200 excavator up to brace the crown of the tree while he cut and I braced with my PC200 from the other side. When the tree popped from the rot and blew the anticipated hinge, it was too top heavy and all it did was relieve my swing circuit. At that point, I could do nothing more than watch the show. He got out of the way in time but his excavator did not as the tree's crown toppled over the stick, then the butt end slid down the stick, bent the stick cylinder, then down the boom and crushed the cab down about 2 feet. Part of the top landed in the highway with traffic running uncontrolled. No one was hurt but my tongue - after hearing, "I've been cutting timber for over 20 F'in years. I don't need some new method to get trees on the ground!" the night before. We always cabled any questionable trees after that. Not thinking clearly once my first divorce was getting underway, I did not think to relieve the pressure on a hydraulic circuit with quick disconnects. There is a button on the joystick to do exactly this and I had done it many times but my head was elsewhere. When I could not disconnect the couplers by hand pressure, I tapped the release collar with a hammer. Again, my head was in the wrong place, my hands were not on the coupler when it released and my two upper front teeth caught the quick coupler when it did release. I thought for sure that I blew the teeth out of my head but they were only fractured with visibly evident cracks across both. Surprisingly, after 7 years or so, the teeth healed and no fracture lines are evident any longer - but I STILL remember that lesson. ALWAYS relieve pressure before working on it. Not thinking to wear gloves one winter's day just before unloading my PC200 to start a ditch clearing job. I stepped over a creek bank to inspect and plan my route for cutting out the brush. The edge of the bank was steep and slippery. When gravity sucked me down, my hands naturally tried to catch myself and reduce the impact to the ground. Unfortunately for my left hand, there was a dead annual plant that broke off the main stem from the collision and jammed the resultant stubble into my palm. I had a 1/2" hole plus numerous smaller holes in my hand oozing blood and foaming. I can be stubborn at times so I continued to unload the machine and attempted to consider working. After 30-45 minutes, it was still foaming and starting to really hurt. I gave up and called my wife to come get me. I wound up with about 4 inches of incision and lots of stitching where the surgeon had to peel open my hand to remove the debris that got imbedded within my palm - all because I did not wear a $10 pair of gloves. I was out a good 4+ weeks on that one. And the list goes on.... Remember, safety gear makes the difference. There are two types of motorcycle riders: Pirates and Armadillos. I wear the gear, not the eye patch. Life is less painful with a measure of protection.
That wood splitter one sounds rough @Willie B and the quick coupling one sounds rough, too, @treemuncher ! I've done my teeth similarly where I've yanked on something heavy or stuck, from straight under my head, and ended up punching myself in the face. Sadly, it's taking me more than one try to learn that one. I'm also a fan of using the chainsaw brake any time the saw is not sawing, too many times I've almost tripped and fell over sticks or branches as I'm bucking stuff up.
Excavator had standard front grid pattern guarding across the front window area. I was building log skidder trails 30 years ago, had mud on the front lower window in the excavator. I didnt see a 4 inch broken ended log that was too close in my swing area. Swung around and the log caught in the lowest center square opening in the guard and fired straight through the tempered glass, snapped both travel levers and pedals clear off their casting hinges on the foot control valve, and the log poked between my legs and stopped at the heater right squarely under the seat. happened do fast, I didnt't even know what had occured for a moment. Worst part was trying to walk the machine out of the bush with nothing but 4 heavily spring loaded plungers sticking out of the floor to operate the tracks.
Another close call: While mulching with the PC200 and cutterhead at a powerplant job, I was doing some technical work near a spillway where they had containment booms, managed with ropes. Whenever I run that machine, I ALWAYS wear safety glasses and a hard hat, and a good thing too that day. I sucked up a piece of rope, no big deal, usually, but that one had a swivel snap hook at the end. The hook was furthest away from me but once the rope had spooled up on the drum, at roughly 100 mph effective rotational speed, the hook broke free of the rope and went through my mesh guard and right through my windshield. Instantly, I could not see as the glass was completely shattered. I checked myself for blood and impact marks but I was lucky enough that it hit the seat base between my legs. The safety glasses saved my eyes from flying glass. The same guy who lost the battle with the oak tree had his son on a later phase of the same job running another excavator mulcher. I suggested to him to put a mesh guard in front of the windshield of his excavator and wear the hardhat/safety glasses. "No, we never have any problems like that. Wood just bounces off the glass and we don't have rocky ground." was the response. Within a day or two at the most, I hear a call over the CB radio that he had an incident. While working a sycamore tree, a 12" long chunk of 4"-5" diameter wood came right through the cab glass and the jagged, sheared end of the log punched him in the cheek just below his eye. He had a circle of bloody holes in his face but not bad enough for a hospital visit. He mounted the guard and new glass the next morning and borrowed safety glasses and a hard hat from me for the rest of the job. Darwin had it right because eventually, like fuel, luck will run out and leave you empty.
when I first started operating excavators there were 2 things that happened. 1. when pulling up a good size tree i grabbed on the lower part of trunk with thumb and lifted high in the air. I quickly realized that it was a bad idea as in slow motion the tree lost its balance and came down on the top the the cab all the while I was saying to myself I hope it dosn't crush me too much SMH. 2. when hooking on to one end of a large log (18" diameter 12' long) with a chain and having the other end attached to my bucket I started to move it and lifted one end maybe 8ft off ground I started to swing direction but the log started going the wrong direction and headed straight for the cab at face level I almost crapped myself and at the last second realized i need to boom down to stop the log and the log dropped to the ground (about 2ft infront of the cab) these things may not sound scary but i was only in a 16,000 lb machine
Welcome to HEF, dadanddaughterexcavation
Yes! a second Welcome to the Nut House.....I mean heavy equipment Forum.
Well while we are talking about teeth, this is not all that terrifying but more embarrassing! A few years back I had got the old Yam XS650 running after repairing the engine out of another bike. This XS650 was a barn find and had probably not been on the road for a few years before I bought it in 2000 and now it was another 15 or more years old! One cold day, maybe just slightly above freezing, I finally got to the point I could start it. I actually sounded pretty good so I decided to run it down the driveway, about 175 feet, and back to the garage. Ran good in first gear to the highway and did the u-turn and gave it a little throttle in first up the slight rise. About 75 feet from the garage let off throttle and touched the brakes. I am in the habit of using both front and back brakes, guess it was not a good idea with light rust on front disk and 15+ year old tires. Bike slammed to the ground hard on the right side with rear brake punching a hole in side case of the engine soaking the drive with oil. Then I notice the red fluid that was not coming from the bike but me! Some skinned knee's and such and also a gap where my right upper front tooth used to be, well at least the upper half was still there! Guess one moral of the story is don't touch brakes too hard when riding on cold blacktop with rock hard 15+ year old tires! Good things were had spare side case for engine on the shelf and a very good dentist that could fabricate a new section of tooth to replace the missing part, and she didn't laugh too much. And yes bike had new sticky tires before the next ride!
Here is a thing through excavator glass story. I was tasked with loading out the scrap steel and wood from about 4 million pounds of form panels for the 520 bridge job from the Tacoma site. They got me a 225 John Deere, it was too small and I told them so. They disagreed. No guarding either, and the trash trucks were 13'6" high siders. That short arm put the stuff uncomfortably close above me. I had a ball of rebar and embedded in it was a 4" x 1/2" by 10' steel strap that I put there, make no mistake I knew it was in there. Lofting that ball of crap over the trash truck, the strap slipped out and speared through the lower glass, snapping off the foot rest casting. It would have likely destroyed my left foot, except my feet are always on the travel pedals. Job came to a full stop, and arrangements were made for guarding and a different excavator. The 20-something nephew ( major nepotism! ) said the excavator was big enough, I disabused him with absolute disregard about my future employment, and when the new machine arrived I was well pleased. He said he got me another 200, but he was clueless enough to mistake a brand new 329 Cat for a 200. It was a long ways better. I was lofting 29' x 5' x .25 sheets and where the 225 barely had it, this thing it was way out at arm's length. That crap would bow and bend back and forth.
Fitted a Birdseye Wagway tree shredder disc to a PC220-5, and made it work with two V60? Flow divider valves on the pump outputs, to achieve the 35-60gpm required to run. Boss insisted on the flow being on the high side, so 60gpm it is (I did a switch for 1pump, 2 pump anyways). Placed a 1" opening screen guard on the cab, and tested it for operation. Job foreman comes down to operate it. First pass, he sends a football sized chunk of tree past me @ over 60yards away. I'm done. It works. Several weeks pass and the assigned operator, having finished felling trees, decides to shred a brush pile the dozer created. Not heeding the instructions of never see the teeth while in operation, he dips the disc down and finds a wrought iron fence within. Two pieces launch toward the cab, with one striking the cab side boom cylinder barrel, leaving a 3/8" deep gouge on its way to ricocheting through the cab side window and out the entry door. The second piece fit perfectly through the 1" mesh guard, the tempered front window, grazed the hair off the operator's head, and left a 1/2" hole in the rear cab sheetmetal top radius. Somewhere out there is a PC220-5 with a work lamp mounted on top rear of the cab. Bought a $1300 piece of 4'x5'x1-1/4" bullet resistant lean and fitted it to front of the cab, yet, no one would elect to continue operating it. Sold the attachment at auction. The contractor who bought it never did pay us for the lexan, which was not part of the auction.
I think a standard mulcher like an FAE or Merry Chrusher would be a lot safer, the same way a flail mower is safer than a rotary.
Don't know why 2 posts show up.
@heymccall that thing is nuts! To toss the top of a tree like that is crazy! On teeth: I was probably 10 or 11 years old when I was riding my bike and a dog ran out in front of me. I jammed on the brakes and went over the handlebars after semi-gently hitting the dog. Broken front tooth and off to emergency dentist. He finished up and said "you'll have to get that changed out in a few years but you're good to go." Well, here we are 30 something years later with that same fill-in job. Last time I went to the dentist, which was quite a while ago, they weren't worried about it. And it looks fine, if you didn't know it you wouldn't know it.
I have 35+ years of experience with terrifying things that have happened to me in this business. I could fill 3 pages here just by myself! I'm trying to decide whether to start back when I was 19?...or concentrate on the worst ones? AHH......screw it! I had what I thought was an idiot boss when I worked for a Linkbelt /Bobcat/ Gomaco dealer back in the early 80"s . We had a Lull 844 in the shop way longer than it needed to be, but once it was finally done, the customer was impatient about getting it back in production. They send their haul truck and low boy to pick the machine up right in the middle of a sever thunderstorm, raining so hard you couldnt even see. Come to find out, WE have to put the machine on the trailer, not the driver of the truck. My boss elects ME to do this and I refuse because of the downpour that was currently going on. I told him it was dangerous to load it but he didnt care.......so off I go. I line up the machine at the back of the low boy ramps and start to go up. I can barely even see where I am at on the trailer, lightning flashing, loud cracks of thunder, and wind driven rain.......all this in a open ROPS. I get the front tires of the lift over the low boy tires, no problem. I start to creep up with the rear axles and as soon as they got on top of the trailer tires, the entire machine slips to the right enough that it goes over the side...................it balances there for about 5 seconds while I'm ready to bail off of it. Of course, it goes ahead and rolls over on its side. I bail as it goes over but still have enough sense to shut the engine off with the key as its going over. Luckily, with it going over to the right, the cab side was up. The other way would have probably crushed me. It only did minor damage that the company had to fix, but it never should have happened in the first place. Did the same thing at the Terex dealer. I was elected to load a 82-20 dozer on a lowboy that was covered in ice.....and I mean THICK ice. I got it over the tires but once it was on the flat of the deck, it proceeded to slide to the right until it went off the side. It didnt roll over, but it tore the $%^& out of that trailer deck.
Over 50 years ago I was working on a Lorain truck crane. It had ball-bearings in the turntable and that made it completely silent when it would swing. It also had about 6 inches of clearance between the top of the outrigger box and the underside of the counterweight when it would swing. On one fateful day the operator was in the seat and the motor motor was idling. He had been waiting about twenty minutes to make a pick for the iron-workers. He forgot that I was working next to the outrigger box when he started to swing for a pick. He never touched the throttle and started to swing. My back was towards the counterweight and I had no idea it was coming towards me. My head and neck was above the outrigger assembly. Instinctively I felt something was happening and I jerked my head back and out of the way of the counterweight. It was about 6 inches from decapitating me when I got away from it. No one saw it happen. I never told the operator because I was sure it would have probably been a life altering event for him. He was a super nice man and I knew him well. Even today I can still visualize that day. PS--- That particular model crane had a bad reputation for crushing and killing people that were caught between the truck cab and the crane counterweight when it was swinging.
brings back memories of my first crane job and a Lorain. This happened on the Seattle waterfront a couple of years ago. https://www.seattletimes.com/seattl...ng-26-dies-shed-built-a-new-life-for-herself/ The article said "struck in the head" but she was in that same spot you were in on a big floating crane, trapped between a railing and the understructure Nobody was looking out for her.
My grandfather on my mother's side was crushed by walking on the bank side of a shovel. He was crushed by the counterweight when the operator turned the house unexpectedly. There were nine kids in her family and he had only worked for the county a few days before it happened. That was in the thirties. My dad told us the story when we started riding along with him to work. I don't know how many times I've been with sales reps who just took off to talk to the shovel operator without catching their attention.
I was on a job with a big conventional crawler crane the oiler got caught with a counter weight and was swept over the tracks I wanna say he was about 20 and 2nd week on the job he only got a busted wrist he was skinning enough it dumped him over the track
AzIron; I hit the like button because of the outcome of that near death accident. Not because I liked what happened. Skyking1; How sad for her and her coworkers after turning her life around. I can visualize how it happened. I feel badly for the crane operator.
Yikes @Tinkerer ! That kind of thing is real scary!
I'm like Vetech63, I've used my nine lives. Mostly because of other people and there stupidity. Working automotive machine years ago the boss would let other people from shops use our press. I was operating the seat guide machine when a mechanic from another shop was using the press. A few seconds later a 1/2" ball bearing zipped by my head went through a 3/4 plywood divider wall and another wall and imbedded in a third wall in the book keepers office-and she was in her office. All because he didn't use a scatter shield-no more outsiders using the press.
I think the only protacal should be crane shut off when doing anything on it. I worked at a golf course where a 2nd assistant ( don't know why you need more than 1) was climbing on an 88 inch tree spade trying to hold branches of a spruce tree out of the spade. Spade operator should have told him to stay away but proceeded to put tree in hole. Crushed assistants steel toed boot in one of the spade slides. Boot had to be cut off and he lost 3 toes! What an idiot but the operator of the spade shares a lot of the responsibility. I think.workers comp. covered it but how stupid can you be. An 88 inch spade has some pretty powerful hydraulics.
I dare say MOST of us old farts on here have used up all the extra granted spares we were allotted at birth, KNOW I have.
It's no different than idiots in cars when you're clearing snow or they see a skid steer on the street. They have no clue to wait for the operator to acknowledge them and figure they'll just sneak behind them. Utter stupidity in my opinion. A car will always lose against machinery.
That is why I tell everybody and I mean everybody that gets around me on an excavator that a little piece of rock or whatever is your best friend. You toss it out there by my bucket and I will just stop moving take my hands off the sticks and look for you. I've had to work many times in tight quarters where when I swing there's 4 " between me and a fence or a house or a building and the counterweight. Plenty of room but no extra room for a human. That one little thing gives me lots of Peace of mind. I do get smart asses who will throw a 3 lb potato inside my bucket as hard as they can bam! I don't care we all go home safe.
I was outside of Packwood somewhere and met the owner of the excavator whom I followed into the wood to a clearing job. It was about a 120 size machine and the operator was facing away from us and could not hear us yelling. The owner picked up a stick and half heartedly threw it to catch the operators attention. We both saw the direction and trajectory just before it slammed into the back cab window and shattered it into thousands of pieces. Scared the crap out of the operator and he ducked down in the cab thinking that someone had taken a shot at him with a gun. He was checking for blood when we got to the door and was pretty pale looking still wondering what had happened. The owner was beside himself apologizing multiple times. I did the political thing and showed plenty of concern for the operator and the owner. Both the owner and the operator left the machine while I did the inspection. Good thing. I couldn't stop laughing about it till I got half way home. I didn't put what happened in the report but did mention that the owner planned on replacing the window before any trade in went down.
example of where not to walk through Not sneaking through here either. The worst "squirrel" nutcase I had to work around lately thought nothing. He thought nothing of just stepping up to the machine from my blind spots without warning me. It was the fiber job above, and i was stripping some heavy sod off with a cleanup bucket, so i would have clean fill for the backfill. I was moving fast, stripping about 3 bucket widths and moving right along. He just stepped up from behind and took my tape measure by my toe glass without warning. ***?
Eye contact with the operator before you come into his working radius, theres no other way to approach a machine. Or a car in cross walk if your on foot.
It is pretty amazing how foolish people can be, the closest call i've had is I bumped a contractor I was working for with my CTL. Backfilling and they decided I was done in that area so starting putting the fence back up maybe 10' behind me only seconds after leaving, nope not done. Lucky I was stopping anyway just as I bumped him.
Hate those pointed fences after watching the news where a deer was impaled jumping over one. Horrible!!! Close calls I had was on my MX track. Had the skid steer out to do a quick repair of a big hole. Had someone at the finish line to wave anyone off and stop riders from going on the track. 5 minutes in I backed up and a very inexperienced kid and then his dad were right there! Holy suite!!! Then another rider... the guy supposed to be stopping riders from going out!!! High tailed it back off the track and no one at the start. I asked the idiot and he thought it was OK or got bored or something. Other time a similar type deal. Was taking a load of material out to fix another hole. 5 ton truck. Asked a guy to stop riders till I got back. Driving backwards on the long straight had a bike coming toward me. Tried to back in fast to dump load and caught a branch which broke a small piece off the fiberglass hood! *&^%$#@ Got back and asked the other idiot and he forgot. HE saw someone riding so figured it was OK and he was the 2nd rider I saw. I should have banned him for life! He also bought a season pass and tried to sneak his neighbors on without paying and got caught because helping at the track was out during the week and the complete moron showed up on the weekend. Let's see 30,000lb. truck vs 225lb. dirt bike, Hmmm, who's going to lose. Then he said riding into a pile of sand would be bad! The sand is one side of the track and you know exactly where it is and have 10ft. to ride around it!!! Personally hitting a pile of sand appeals to me more than hitting a 5 ton truck.6 Clearing snow and having idiots pales in comparison. New policy is no track work unless track is completely blocked off with signs and somewhat intelligent people keeping riders off till work is completed. Has to be a major problem like a tree fell and could get hit in order to go on track when it is open for riding. Still scared me a little.
I've got more than a few, but one sticks out at me as unusual. I was a brand-new blaster's helper at an underground limestone mine in Kentucky working up in the man basket of our UV-11 loading a round. The ANFO pots were pneumatically charged to blow prill into the drill holes and would throw out several pounds a second at high velocity out of a heavy HDPE hose. After charging one hole, we shut off flow to the hose - but the flow continued. One of the control valves had failed, which wasn't a big deal until the hole was filled to capacity and the hose forced itself out. I was 25' in the air wrestling with this hose as it was spewing ANFO and the blaster dropped the man basket down so he could kill the engine and get the thing under control. By the time he shut the engine down, we'd spewed several hundred pounds all over the drift floor. Looking back, I wasn't in much if any actual danger, but it was an adrenaline rush with how green I was. Other than that - the usual near misses associated with running equipment in bad ground at surface mines, and working at heights around processing plants.
Admittedly several of my lessons have been brake related due to my ignorance about their workings. But the most terrifying lesson I learned was the Quebec train disaster where a train engine that was in need of repairs was left parked, unattended and running to keep air supplied to the brake chambers. The engine caught on fire, fireman came, shut the engine down, put out the fire, left, the brakes lost pressure, and with this brake design, there are handbrakes that were not sufficient to hold the train of 70 some cars, which rolled and then raced into the town, still unattended, with disastrous results and dozens dead. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lac-Mégantic_rail_disaster My takeaway is don't epoxy an engine back together, don't leave it running unattended with the engine not performing right, make sure the brakes are sufficient to hold the load without the engine running, if you mess with someone else's stuff, it's on you.
The CEO of the train company was a complete and total a-whole too when he opened his mouth. Trying to save his job or something. They should have put him in jail. Ultimately he's in charge of making sure the trains are safe and the required maitaince is done. Horrifying derailment!
Years ago when I was driving dump truck I had a nice new Sterling dump truck with a high lift gate on the back. This gate had some pretty small lift cylinders that were plumbed to the main hoist lift valve with a diverter that would put the full flow of the pump to the lift gate and it would open FAST with those small cylinders and all that flow. Even with the engine at idle would this thing fly open. One day I was delivering a load to a jobsite and had backed into where I was supposed to dump it. The operator of the excavator on site was nowhere to be seen. I got out of the truck, made sure the area behind and around the truck was ok to dump this load of whatever it was. Still no sign of the operator. So I got back in the truck, flipped on the PTO, unlocked the dogs on the tailgate and opened the gate. As the gate came up I saw the operator of the excavator come flying out from behind the truck through the air in my rear view mirror. He had been in the outhouse and heard me coming, finished his business and came running to tell me to dump somewhere else and ended up right behind the truck when the tailgate opened. Since this tailgate moved so fast he went for one heck of a ride. I appologized to him and he appologized to me, he realized there was no way for me to see him from where he was coming. Thankfully other than a few bruises he was ok...
Aug 26, 2015. The accident part was one thing. Sure, I could have died and even worse...I could have killed innocent people. That didn't happen. The nightmare started after I showed the doctors this video. They contacted DMV and the rest was an absolute ......... lets just say that it was bad. Dealing with DVM the way they insist on kicking you and keeping you down when your already down only made me into an angry , pissed off man. They suspended my license for 5 years and didn't give a **** as to how in the world I would survive. Unable to work, behind on my house payments, turned down by workmans comp and unemployment @ $450.00 a week? That wasn't gonna make a house payment. But it bought the alcohol. Out of desperation I took a job as a mechanic while using my own truck. I ended up getting stopped which got my truck impounded. Long story short, It took 2.5 years of going back and forth with the DMV, my doctor and many hearings to finally get my class C back. And to think....this all could have been avoided had I not tried to do the right thing by showing the doctors this video in hopes of getting me back in the saddle a little sooner. Had I told the doctors that i was texting my wife or reaching for a drink.... I would have still had my license, my job and we wouldnt be having this conversation. Lesson learned... hell yes. I will never, ever volunteer any information to anyone....especially the DMV. And if they do ask me anything... I'll look them straight in the eye and lie thru my teeth. And that goes with anything related to federal, state and local governments. Once you are down, these people's sole propose in life is to keep you down. It sure seems that way. Good or bad, thats how I feel. Wright or wrong, thats how it is. Had I been a wet back and jumped the wall, I'd have everything one could wish for simply handed over to me. But if you work hard and try to do the right thing, you suffer and you get screwed over by those who you pay to help you. I'm pissed off again now... need a drink.
Damn
Wow, so that’s where your screen name comes from.
Actually not. He's been Rollover Pete for a long time before that incident happened. On his work pics thread, near the beginning somewhere, he mentions the origin of the his screenname
You have quite an amazing memory, Colson !
It didn't scare me, but I think it may have gotten the apprentice's attention. I was grading a slope on a river bridge job, UNDER the pile caps. The tool was a pc400-LC5 short arm and stick. I had to track in under the cap to work the slope below. Apprentice was tasked with hauling away spoils behind me, and was told to stay out from behind me as I would be backing blind while sloping. He said OK, I will stay out of your way. There was room to do so. You know I did not even feel that 966 as I pinned it between the tires and slid it sideways. The superintendent was literally palm over face when I got out and asked just *** was going on. He saw the whole thing from the abutment above. He said the kid's eyes were as big as saucers. I don't recall that guy's final disposition, but he was an ironworker who wanted to jump into the operators. He sometimes did what he was told, but other times not so much. Most notable was staking, you could lead him around by the nose, show him the staking and it was wiped away by the end of the shift. I showed him how to pull dirt back with the edge down, did not matter. He went in go ahead mode till it was no longer an issue.
The name was given to me by some friends from San Diego 4 Wheelers that I was jeeping with. Since this was the first of many, it kinda stuck.
The accident part was one thing, Rollover Pete, you said it was syncope, passing out due to low blood pressure. Did you get that resolved? And otherwise, you drink when angry, is that right? Lots of folks drink to relieve pain. Could that be it?
I drink for the taste of it, and about the only pain aid that still works.
Friends have a family excavating business. Youngest son was in his 40s when he needed shoulder surgery. Gravel truck was only driven by him. A week of being parked, the 75 year old father decided it'd be a good thing to start it up, warm up the engine. It is SOP to ALWAYS set the spring brakes. Unexplained, he left it in gear, no spring brakes. As air bleeds down, the spring brakes set themselves. Son hadn't pulled the knob, just left it in gear. Dad reached in took it out of gear & started it. He went in the office. Ten minutes later, the air built up, released the spring brakes. Truck rolled down the hill and through the office wall. Chalk your wheels, set your spring brakes
I went to cardiologists, neurologists and took every test they threw at me for 2.5 years. The results were the same. All they could find was that I had a slight episode of some kind on the left side of my brain . That's it. Loma Linda couldn't find anything. Specialists at Eisenhower medical couldn't find anything. My own doctor couldn't find anything. Every test they gave me came out negative. Cat scans, MRIs, showed nothing. Blood sugar, pregnancy, drug screen, blood pressure and any other digital probe they ran didn't show a dammed thing. Nothing was resolved. As far as what I do when angry? Nothing. If I'm home, I hold it inside and let it build. Then when the wife runs off, I'll go in the closet and jerk off until my arm falls asleep. What the hell kind of question is that? You sound like a head doctor working at a mental hospital. So, no. I drink when I'm thirsty or when I feel like it. Alcohol does nothing for pain. I refuse to take any pharmaceutical drug. Something about the side effects. Instead, I'll smoke a joint or eat a brownie before bed. If I'm driving or working, I just deal with it. Oh brother...... The "lots of folks drink to relieve pain, could that be it?" part literally made me laugh. Thanks, I needed that captain obvious. You should have been at the hospital instead. I'm sure you would have fixed me right up. Now brother, please....take this with a grain of salt as I have. I wasn't in pain or angry when I passed out. Nothing personal but the part where "folks drink to relieve pain, could that be it " has got to be the most ridiculous thing I've heard s since 46 spewed on the evening news.
A good friend was bush hogging with his Ford 8N tractor years ago. While cutting, he felt something hit him in the back and felt the wet of blood on his shirt but not enough to matter. He finished his cutting and went about his normal activities of the day. That night, in bed, he asked his wife if she remembered the bump that was on his chest. Nope, that was not there before but after hearing of the day's events, off to the emergency room they went. Xray showed a chunk of wire at his chest about to protrude. Doctor made a slice with a scalpel and pulled it out. The chunk of wire passed through his back and was stopped by the skin of his chest WITHOUT hitting any vital organs or veins. Damn, talk about lucky. I was working one handed after hand surgery (creek bank fall without gloves) running the bush hog on my own tractor because I was stir crazy and figured I could get something accomplished. I got into gravel and sent the back glass into the cab with the flying rocks. No, I can't see much out the back but I do have Lexan guards on both rear windows after my mistake and especially after hearing Ray's story. And yes, I do get nervous when passing ROW cutters on the roadsides. You never know what they will fling out. It's all about timing.