Got lucky today and a new nickname

[Taylortractornut]

I ve been operating heay equipment for about 15 years since I was 14. Today I did something my brother or had hasnt i rolled the D5B off the side of a 4 foot tall lowboy. We dont have a lowoy so another company hauls it for us. Ive loaded this dozer tons of times on this same trailer I hate. It has an all steel dove tail and the five wants to claw around on them. We had a leak in the belly pan wheick being in a landfill isnt aloowed so we parked it and arranged a spot at a heavy equipment shop. I heard the lowboy comming and got ready he pulls around the building and right infront of where I was. I made him pull up till he was level. When I loaded I didnt have any trouble I noticed the lowboy squatted abit and I thought about backing off right there. I went ahead and had it lined up right watching the insides of my blade trunnion arms to make sure that I was in the center. When I got the the front I idled the engine down, pulled up the park brake and put it in neutral, and set the blade down. When I set the blade down I felt like I was sitting in a car slipping on ice. I saw the bed sliding and thought thats not good. THen Itgot real fast and slow agin. I had my belt on and had a kungfu grip on the gaurd around the shifter and gripped the blade control lever likewise. When the left track hit she went on ovet to the top of the Rops. My head never hit the ground My cell phone flew out of my covveralls pocket ringing and hit me in the head. As soon as the machine hit i reached up and pushed the throttle forawrd to kill it. It puffed a few balls of oil smoke. Donny my worker ran around behinde the machine expecting the wors I was still strapped in and he reached around me kinda choking me I looked at his pale face and told him We wasnt married to quit huggin me. I just stepped out of the cab and nder the limb risers. I was more worried about the machine. Donny ran to get dad. Hewas about to have a come apart. The lowboy driver hauled a** an dad called his boss over it. It was mainly my fault I let the driver judge the placement of the truck, HeI should have walked around and checked it as I usually do when ever Im loading a truck I didnt drive there. He had parked the tuck on a bag in the road but thetrailer has a set of airbags that came out from a selflevleing car transport. Turns out whe nI loaded the levelers had leveled it up till I got onto it. I was more embarrassed than any thing. Dad said hed load it monday I told him as soon as we get it flipped an let the oil run back down Id be back up there. Dad and I had just talked about haow dangerous it was It had been raining and that bed treatment they use is slick. It was raining out to. It shocked me about how easy the difficult part of loading was. Ive run this machine since I was 14 and Ive loaded hundreds of machines from all sorts of rollers and compactors to, 12 to30 yard scrapers, skid steeres excavators loaders and giant cranes. And of all the danged luck crashed the D5. My older brother got there he gave me the new name of Crash Lambert. We just took dads Kubota and hauled several buckets of sawdust under the airborn side to cushion the final drives and under carriagge when it landed back flat. we then hooked a choker cable to the trunnion ball and then to the rear of the compactor and pulled it back over and let it set a minute then bumped the started to check for and oil on the pistons to prevent a busted piston ot bent rod. Later dad told me that when he was a young man he was on a job and and opertor fell off a trailer on a hydraulic bladed dozer that had the PCU on the back to run a cable scraper. The long handlethat reaces down to the PCU pinned him behind the ear and killed him. My wife was calling me when the phone fell and she thought I had ung up on her She called a little miffed, itold her I was crashing at that moment lol. I found all the bolts I v lost out of my pockets that were under the seat to.

 

[Ridgewalker]

Paragraphs please...a big chunk of text like that is unreadable.

Sorry to be a "Englit101 Sherriff" but if you want folks to read your post you gotta use an occasional para break.

(Call me, hunkered down ready to be flamed)

 

[actionaj]

I am glad you alright and nobody was hurt. Things like that sure can happen fast and before you know it.

 

[RobS]

Glad you're OK "crash". I think I like the new name, has a certain ring to it. I'll bet those tracks work a lot like ice skates on a wet, oily surface. Too bad the skate blades were pointed sideways.

Again, glad to hear you weren't hurt!

 

[EddieWalker]

Glad to hear it wasn't any worse. I've gone over small bumps, and the jolt on my dozer is enough to hurt my insides. A big drop like that could have been very severe. Especially if you didn't have on your belt!!!!!!!

Thanks for the reminder. Too often, I get lax and forget how quickly things can change.

Eddie

 

[Thomas]

Glad your okay...whew...you just never know.

 

[rdln]

Pictures?

 

[two_bit_score]

Dang, man. That's scary to think how quickly that happened. Glad you weren't hurt and the D5 wasn't damaged. Could have been a lot worse. It's crappy of that guy to run off like that too.

 

[RadarTech]

Pictures?

I think if it was me, the story would be enough to embarras. and the evidence of pictures would be way too much to even consider having, let alone posting!


Well Crash-- glad ur ok..

We all have a time when the Lord wants us to come home. and yours was not today..

count your blessings, hug the wife and be thankful!


Later,
J

 

[Taylortractornut]

Sorry about the text I had it paragraghed but it loaded all blocked up. Im having trouble with my new spell checker. I can edit it if you like. I had to take pictures but I anly had one shot left on my disposable, supposed to be insurance kit camera but an 82 wheeled trailer came through town had to shoot it. My brother brought one of his. I dont know if he took andy of us using the homebuilt compactor to roll it back over. It didnt even grunt though.
I m not as embarrassed as I was yesterday Im not ashmed of it if it helps someone els decide to use a belt while loading.
Eddie Ivve had a share of sharp bumps this one wasnt real bad it wasnt like running over a rock or backing the drawbar into a stump or backing over a terrace Itwas a good lick when the trahit the ground and it rolled over to the cab side kinda just tumps over. It was about like both my big sheperds bowl me over. It was kinda violent everything shook like a good solid lick. I wasnt sore or anything this mornig well sleepy my wife kept waking me up t ocheck for a concusion I told her I didn have. I wanted to load it today but the driver wasnt available. We had a nice big single axle tractor and single axle tilt top trailer to move it on when Belmont homes had the landfill but they sold them both instead of thinking ahead and leaving it there. Ive figured it out Ive loaded on that trailer 30 some odd times over the years. The shocker was I had put it in neutral and set the parking brake about to kill it when it slid off. The marks on the lowboy showed I was square and centered.

Dad finally calmed down about it now he was excited, I know hes been runnning one 50 years and seen some bad accidents on them. I really couldnt beleive that it wsas so easy to get up those ramps and dove tails that usually the problem area. Im comfortable with that machine and it makes it eas to load but I should have made the driver of the truck park in the parking lot be he has alot of trouble driving lol. 8 am Monday Ill be loading her up on the same trailer.