I come home from other job last night and two of my sons are working on the one of their vehicles in the garage. My youngest sons OT truck is in the garage, up in the air, all of the wheels are off. My second son, Cody, was loading the tires in the back of his OT truck. NO problem right? Well I started to head into the house and kick one of my jack stands. Now i realize that there is a problem. Dad: What is Bradley's truck sitting on? Cody: Jack stands and the jack. Dad: Put the other jack stand under it. Cody: It will be fine. Dad: No it won't, put a jack stand under it. Jacks are famous for leaking, or failing all together. Cody: There isn't anyplace to put the stand. Dad: Lets find a place, the frame, the suspension, someplace. Cody: It will be fine with only three stands. Dad: It will work just fine right here. And I with the pressure off of the jack I will feel better. And if the the jack failed, and the truck fell over into Mom's car, what would you say to her? At this point, all I heard was crickets. I doon't think he thought about that. When you are 22 years old, you are invincible and always correct. I just hope that he, and his younger brother learned something from this situation. Luckily nobody was injured and nothing broken. I tell my students that the most valuable tool in the tool box is one the will prevent injury Mark
A few months ago I bought some old windows to replace a broken one. The man was in a wheel chair. He was 24 and had a car fall off a jack and paralyzed him. nice job mark keep those boys safe
In Cody's defense, he really is a pretty good mechanic and he usually uses some common sense. But this time, I think he was just concentrating on the job of swapping the tires over for his brothers truck, a lapse of attention. Cody works at discount tire, and they are pretty good about stressing safety there. We all have lapses of judgement at times. I just hope that we cane learn from the lapses without getting hurt or breaking something. Mark
The Jalopy Journal
