Yesterday I narrowly avoided a huge disaster. I moved my 41 pickup from the basement to the garage. The basement access is on the back of the house and the garage on the side of the house, so it is a long curved semi-steep uphill path. I tied off the steering wheel with the wheels turned, connected a strap to my Dakota and pulled ithe pickup backwards up the hill, while curving around the backyard towards the driveway. Just before I got to the driveway, I stopped and adjust the steering wheel to straighten the wheels. I started to move it again when the strap came loose and the pickup started rolling straight down my backyard towards the forest. As fast as I could, I jumped out of the Dakota, chased it down and grabbed the tailgate to try to stop the rolling. I was pulling backwards while also being partially dragged down the hill. It took 100 feet and every bit of my strength to stop it. All the while, I kept saying, “stop, stop, stop...”, yep, no swearing. By a complete miracle, I missed six huge trees in the yard and got it stopped just before it hit the forest. Afterwards I looked at the tire marks and saw that it missed the trees by just one foot on each side. I started thinking that if I had not straightened the wheels, when the strap came off it would have rolled back around and down to the basement on the steeper part of the yard. I would not have been able to stop it with the steep grade and it would have hit the concrete foundation and destroyed the front end. It was a combination of things that caused the starp to come off. When the pickup first touched the concrete, it cause slack in the strap and there was also a bad angle between the trucks on the very last bit of pull which allowed the hook to be twisted and come off easily. If I ever do this kind of thing again, I am using double straps. Late last night I could barely walk. I have bruised both of my ankles and pulled some leg muscles wresting the truck to a stop.
Well you have every right to hate me for this but I am laughing my damned fool head off. I keep getting pictures of the three stooges or a looney toons character in my head. I am soooo sorry, and I am glad that you are OK as in not dead or real mangled OK but if you could see it from where I sit that if funnier than hell. Glad you didn't loose any fingers or your pickup though.
Hey man! Been there before on close calls! I am really glad that everything worked out for you. Once I had the chevy sitting in the driveway warming up. I closed the garage door and left out the back man door and went out from to sitting on the other side of the road in the neighbours driveway. Lucky I live on a quiet street! J
Oh, I have to admit I was an idiot and this was entirely my fault. However, I think it was less like The Three Stooges and more like the coyote but without the roadrunner.
When accidents happen it only takes seconds but they are the longest seconds of your life. You very lucky and I am sure God was watching over you. How else could you explain missing the trees by one foot!!! Take a deep breath and relax. Jimbo
This thread is nothing without pictures! LOL Glad we can all laugh about it now. Glad both you and the truck are unscathed
had my 45 GPW parked in the driveway over night years ago. usually i chocked the tire but didn't have it chocked. it was parked in gear but I think some punk neighbor kids popped it into neutral and let her go.... when I woke up it was parked on the neighbors front lawn partially on the sidewalk! usually they had a car parked on the street but luckily they hadn't that night. Gotta love close calls! hell of a lot better than the alternative Glad you had a close call.
Reminds me of the time I helped my dad recover his '88 1 ton 454 after an afternoon at his girlfriend's house. The truck had rolled backwards downhill, across the busy highway, and down an embankment splitting two trees by less than 6 inches on either side. Needless to say, the next day he fixed the emergency/parking brake.
Thank God you were so lucky. Back around 1976, I took our shop vehicle (a mid '60's full size Mercury) home one weekend. I don't remember the starting procedure, but it involved manually setting the choke, starting the engine and then getting out and releasing the choke, or fast idle linkage, or putting the air cleaner back on, or something. I start the thing Saturday morning, and as I get out out, it takes off in reverse. It had some sort of vacuum parking brake release when it came out of park, and I must not have had it all the way in park. I freaked out and tried to run around to the drivers door, opened the door as it passed a tree, and was nearly pinned. I closed the door before it hit the tree, but the back of my hand was badly scraped. The car continued down the side street, across the street in front, and into the neighbor's front yard heading for the corner of his house. I managed to get in and get the thing stopped without being run over. When the adrenaline subsided, I had a terrible pain across my abdomen like a cramp, and couldn't move for a couple of minutes. I hurt all weekend.
Pictures ? I believe we can let not taking pictures slide this time. I don't think he had time to run and get a camera. Glad it came out okay except for a few ouckies. You will be laughing about this later like me and Beaner. Sure glad I've never done anything stupid while moving my cars!!!!!!!!!! We always wrap the tow strap and tie it back on itself to keep it from unhooking. Not saying it's ever happened. But it could! Thanks for telling others and being man enough to admit you did wrong. Hopefully someone else will not make this mistake now.
If would have run after a camera that would have been classic daffy duck. I'll bet there are some pretty deep gouges in the grass.
Trying to stop a rolling vehicle with your bare hands is one way to lose limbs or life, better to let it go ... But glad it worked out in this case and you and the truck are OK.
Glad you are ok, and the truck is too. In hindsight ... Most any auto damage is fixable. Bodily harm is not always. So I might have let the thing go, to be honest. How much does a knee reconstruction cost these days?
Gonna have to agree with pb, I was laughing as I read this. But I truly am glad to hear everything is ok and you are just sore. Don't even ask about some of the crap I've done.
I'm with beaner et al - I wanna see the video - can you reenact it so you can post it for us? It sounds like you had a hoot! Glad you didn't end up with more than a few ouches, and thanks for sharing - it just proves we can all have boner moments. No, not boner moments as in strap-on...............!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Come on guys!!
Glad to see that no truck, house or trees were hurt in the excitement. hope the legs heal up quickly. At least you didn't try to jump in the truck to stop it and get run over by it in the process. I've never allowed any of my kids to play in any of the cars any time and firmly don't believe in or condone it but when we came home from my 20th Class reunion picnic in my 51 Merc I parked it in the driveway and while we were getting it unloaded my then 4 year old son decided to "play driver" and grabbed the steering wheel and gear shift and kicked it out of gear and let it roll back into an apple tree. My now 33 year old daughter who was 9 at the time almost got run over by the door trying to get in and stop the car. It bent the open trunk lid and broke a branch on the neighbors apple tree but no harm to the kids.
And people think women lifting cars off babies after a car crash are amazing feats of stength. Ain't nothing compared to what an old hot rodder is capable of in a similar situation..
Glad your OK Dude,like someone already said,get help the next time.. SJLippoldt,tell your Dad ,I can see how proud he is of you<SCRIPT type=text/javascript> vbmenu_register("postmenu_8200126", true); </SCRIPT> in your album picture, I have two girls,my pride and joy.... Now back to the regular thread.....
I have the "Yakkety Sax" song from Benny Hill going through my head as I envision this happening!! Glad you are relatively ok and you didn't have to fix the truck. Still laughing though . . .
I can relate to this and know exactly how you felt as it was rolling away. I had a 68 camaro that i was working on at the time in my garage. Right outside of the garage door, the driveway slopes about 30 degrees for 15 feet and then flattens out. My wife asked me to get the decorations down out of the attic. Well the attic door is in the garage and comes down with a folding ladder. It doesn't clear the back of the car so i took a piece of 4X4 that i use for a wheel chok and place it about 3-4 feet from the opening outside. The driverside window was down and since it is a small garage, i didnt open the door to put it in neutral. I leaned in the car, took it out of gear then pushed on the a pillar to slowly roll it out. Well that was the plan anyway. as the front tires crested over onto the slope it picked up enough speed to roll over that 4X4! Well it wouldnt have been that big of deal but my daily driver was at the end of that driveway! My heart never started beating so fast! I try and stop it as its dragging me along the driveway. Well 15 feet is a short distance as the car is getting faster as it goes down and not enough time to open the door so i dive head first through the window opening and apply the brake with my hand. I stayed like that for like 5 minutes with my legs dangling out the window and all, trying to catch my breath. I put it in park and unfold myself from the car wondering if i even stopped it in time. I walk to the front of the car and there is literally 2inches between them. All iI could think was how am I going to explain this to the insurance company? Well you see...I was...Well...
The Jalopy Journal
