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Almost just died

Nazarethk5

Nazarethk5

1/2 ton status
Joined
Apr 29, 2009
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Location
nazareth pa
I was just pulling a cummins out of a 94 dodge and the thing was getting precarious. Im trying to crack the jack open and let the engine down on the ground and it broke open and dropped the motor fast and the backing plate clipped the front crossmember on the dodge and tipped the whole hoist. I see it coming down on the gas tanks on my torch and next thing I know the whole thing just dumps onto my gas tanks on its side and I here gas leaking. I ran away fast as hell and came back 5 minutes later and closed the tanks off even though I could barely reach the valves through all the metal that was on top of them. Its starting to set in now that I could of blown up and been dead right now. Just want to remind everyone of how fast chit can hit the fan. I will never ever leave tanks around my work area again. Im still shaking a bit.:eek1:
 
SAFETY, first and foremost. Glad things didn't get any worse than they were.
 
Yeah it was a situation that I could of prevented by just taking the time to put the torch away after using it and it just about blew me up.
I still need to get the hoist off the tanks and Im scared as hell just doing that I just closed em and left to catch my breath
 
Well be careful, man. Be careful. Wear shoes in the house. Safety. Safety first, then teamwork.
 
I am constantly wiping my tools down and laying them out so that I can easily get the tools I need and when i'm done they all get wiped down again before they get put back in my box. While I RARELY use my torches I ALWAYS remove the gauges and install the caps on the tanks when i'm not using them and I ALWAYS keep them far away from the area i'm working in.
 
Glad your OK!...it IS amazing how FAST things can go VERY weong doing that kind of work...ven if you have all the right equipment & skills, **it happens!.

.many an experienced mechanic has lost his life when he got really busy and he didn't have time to move those tools or mop the floor up when antifreeze & oil spiled--I know a guy who worked at a dealership that slipped on a wet floor and landed head first in a steel beam for a lift,and he died the next day in the UCU..

An episode like yours happens at least once a day in a busy junkyard--we had to yank several engines a day out,often in the worst weather and or in broiling siummer heat,and thats when things really get dangerous,you cut corners and try doing risky things so you wont get soaked in that approaching downpour,or have to walk 500 feet back to the garage for a tool,etc...looking back on all the times I nearly got squashed under a car ot when pulling engines with the loader (I was the :hook man",I didn't like driving it much--had hardly any brakes and I never got to use it enough to feel comfortable in it...its scary when your trying to run it and you want to pick UP and engine but push the lever to DOWN because your not familiar enough with the machine--it also sucks when you hop in a different loader and all the controls are different !..it only takes 1/2 a second to drop a car !....people think its easy fixing cars till they try doing it!..but in reality its one of the hardest jobs and among the most dangerous,,,
 
Good news is we read it here and not in your local paper under... that section. Be safe brother!
 
4X4HIGH said:
I am constantly wiping my tools down and laying them out so that I can easily get the tools I need and when i'm done they all get wiped down again before they get put back in my box. While I RARELY use my torches I ALWAYS remove the gauges and install the caps on the tanks when i'm not using them and I ALWAYS keep them far away from the area i'm working in.
Click to expand...



Yep, 1000000000% agree. Glad your alright. Glad you KNOW how bad it could have been and are learning a valuable lesson and didn't get hurt in the process. Bet you feel alive as hell right now (when it happened) Heart was a racing huh? lol. People die everyday doing mundane things just like you were. Go buy a lottery ticket.
 
Though I have pulled a few engines alone,I prefer not too--having another body there to dial 9-1-1 ,if nothing else,can save your butt!...I like working alone much of the time,often a "helper" just gets in the way--but when it comes to the actual pulling,its nice to have someone there to help drag the hoist around,or be able to call for hekp if things go sour..I've had an engine crane tip up so the back wheels came off the ground and I had to stand on it to keep the engine from crashing!---luckily a customer came in at that moment and was sble to stand on it and hold it steady while I repositioned the engine "tilter"..had he not showed up just then,I would have likely not been able to move without the engine crashing down--it was only a straight six too--a cummins must weigh twice as much,and it isn't hard for that kind of weight to overpower you..
 
Damm, glad your ok.


I know Forum will have something to say and a crazy story.

Again, glad your not dead!
 
Yep, glad you're still with us. At least I hope you are. I notice that you haven't been back online since...........
Hope nothing went wrong with moving the metal.

As for a good story, its strange. As long as I have been around, and as many bad situations I have managed to get myself into, I don't remember a lot of interesting near death stories.

I have told the one about the idiot trying to shoot me off the top of my Jeep, and I have had a few near misses in traffic, but the really close ones just don't seem to make a good story.

Most of them are along the lines of.... I was working on something, and noticed that a crane was going to swing a heavy piece over me.
Figured I might better move, and then it fell right where I was.

Thinking back, almost all of them were only close if I did not do something right.
Close a shield door and have a sudden dent appear from the other side as a tool broke for instance.

I guess when you have lost as many friends as I have, and had as many little close calls, you reach a point where its a case of "well, missed me again".

For instance, I was visiting a friend at his shop. Guy comes in and wants to show him a condo for sale.
He has got a helicopter that we can ride over to see it in.

I beg off, because I don't know this guy, and have no idea how good his piloting skills are.
Turns out, they are not quite good enough. He lands OK, but when he goes to take off to come back, he drifts into a tree, which flips the copter upside down and smashes it flat.
It then catches on fire.

Scratch one friend, and technically a close call for me.

Then I had another friend invite me to go with him and his father down the river fishing.
Couldn't go, they never came back.
Found their boat, never found them.


The part about both of those that haunts me, is: Would they have survived if I was there?

The helicopter drifted under the tree when it landed. I might have noticed and stopped the guy from taking off.

The boat trip, I have no idea. There was blood in the boat, and a rifle had been fired several times with one round hitting it from inside.
I'm a little more suspicious then they were, and one heck of a lot better shot.
It might have been enough to make the difference.

Its not that I'm superstitious, but I hope that I make it until tomorrow. When you start talking about close calls, it might just remind someone that you are overdue.............
 
Im still alive! Just cleaned everything up carefully. Wow Fordum that stuff is incredible man, your friends on the boat got attacked? Whats your job if you dont mind me asking?
By the way, who tried to shoot you off a jeep?
 
OK, glad you'er still here. The Jeep story is here.

http://coloradok5.com/forums/showthread.php?t=165506&highlight=Jeep&page=3
Post 26, but they are all good.

Don't know what happened to my friends. The boat was aground on a sandbar with the engine set to run, in gear, out of gas.

There was blood on the boat, the rifle was in the boat, and there were empty casings around.

Its a pretty wild area, and back then you did not see as many people as you do today.
I know that folks used to make shine up and down the river, and I'm sure today that there are labs or grow spots in the swamp, but it would be risky today to do much of that. There is a lot of hunting and fishing going on these days.

They never determined if someone might have shot them, or if it was an accident.
I can see it either way. They might have stumbled up on something they should not have and were trying to get away when they got shot out of the boat.
The official report was that it was probably an accident. One of them accidentlly shot the other, and was trying to get them to a doctor when they hit a log or sandbar and got thrown out.

If that was what it was, they both were probably drowned and the gators took care of them.

As for my job, you name it. I'm an electronics engineer, do some land selling on the side, I am trying to run three companies, and thinking about starting another one.
I used to be a pretty fair shot with a rifle, not good enough to make money at it any more though, do some mechanical design and repair work, and I'm an occasional amateur gynecologist..........


As they say, just enough to keep my hand in..............:whistle:
 
glad your safe and here to chat with us. Life is short.

and Im deathly afraid of torch gas. Thats why I use plasma cutter, argon, and co2'. not that they arent without their own risks, but at least its harder to blow myself up. :eek1:
 
When I was about 10,I met a guy who lived near our house,who was a mechanical whiz--he would help my older brother and I learn about engines and other things,we always brought our go-kart and mini-bike to him when they broke and he'd always be happy to help us fix them..

This man had his own brand of car batteries in the 40's,and had a shop in the center of the town I lived in...he told us how one snowy day when they had over a foot of snow,that he went to work,unlocked the door,and reached in and grabbed a snow shovel to clear the sidewalk--and flipped on the light switch..

There was a tremendous explosion,and he found himself in a snow bank across the street!--the roof of the building and front wall had collapsed,and it was on fire...after the fire department put the fire out,a quick investigation showed the oxyacetalyne tanks had been left "on" (valves on,but the torches themselves were :off")--evidently they leaked all the gases out during the night,filling the room with highly explosive gas,and when he flicked the light switch on --BOOOOOOOOOOOOM!..
He showed us the pictures the insurance company took--he said he "got a beating" when they refused to pay,saying it was "negligence" that caused the destruction..

I remember helping that guy make a relative a flag pole for their front yard out of two 21' lengths of galvanized pipe one day--he had them supported on sawhorses outside--he had me hold one end steady while he brazed the two peices where they overlapped,I was about 20 feet away at the far end of the pipe while he was near the middle,and was only a foot away from the overhead door of his garage--he moved the torch away to inspect the braze job,and there was a flash,and a big "BANG"--turned out he had 6 batteries charging on a matble topped table about 5 feet away that were being charged by one of those old Tungar bulb chargers..I about soild my shorts !!!..he just spit the remains of his cigar out and said "S***--that was a brand new battery "!...and went right back to brazing...I guess after you've been blown across a street,"small" explosions dont bother you much!..

I later learned my friend was who had invented the "Armorplaste Window: that ended up being used in many WWII tanks..and he held several other patents...too bad I had to learn that by reading his obituary --I bet he could have told some facinating stories about things he built --he told us a lot of things,but never mentioned the window or anything about the war...probably too painful for him to want to re-live those days maybe..
 
we show this to every employee we hire that gets a company van....
we keep small oxy act rigs in the trucks....

This wasn't one of ours..... but it's a good safety video..

leaking tanks in the van overnight...walks out in the morning and and hits the unlock button on the remote...BOOM !

 
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