Car Fell on Man

[Bird]

I assume that most of the folks on this forum know enough to not get under a car, tractor, or other heavy equipment on jacks, or otherwise inadequately blocked and supported, but a fellow living about a mile from me was under a car this afternoon when it fell on him and killed him. Just seems to me to be a hard way to go, especially when it could so easily be prevented.

 

[Jeff396]

My wifes cousin died a few years back when his VW microbus fell off the jack stands while he was under it. Left a wife and two very young kids. I've gotten to the point where I bought the highest rated jack stands with the widest base, chock the tires and I still leave the floorjack under the car for a back up. You just can't be too safe!!! What really gives me the willys is when you see a car in a yard that is jacked up with logs or worse, cinderblocks./w3tcompact/icons/shocked.gif

Jeff

 

[Bird]

<font color=blue>logs or worse, cinderblocks.</font color=blue>

I think I'd trust the cinderblocks more than logs, but you won't find me under a car using either one. I, too, have 4 jackstands, let the weight down onto the jack stands with the floor jack, then leave the floor jack in place with it raised just enough to put pressure on it.

 

[billfires]

If you do use jack stands, please ensure they are on a solid surface. We did a call a few years ago where a Dodge Caravan was on jack stands that were on top of 1/4" plywood. This young man was trapped underneath the van for between 10 and 30 minutes before he was found. He is now in a vegetative state in a long term facility. I am sure he thought he was doing it safely but the end result proved otherwise. Please be careful, accidents happen in the blink of an eye.

Bill C

 

[Harv]

I'm afraid this sad story occurs more often than we'd like to think.

A fella I worked with met his end the same way. Ironically, he was one bright engineering kinda guy, yet he thought it was perfectly safe to use a single puny jack to hold up the corner of his Lincoln Continental in his garage while he poked his head underneath for a quick look at something. Tragically, he lived alone, and it wasn't until he missed a couple of days' work that somebody went looking for him.

It was shortly after that when I bought my first set of ramps. Ideally, I would like to use a pit.

 

[rocky2]

The owner of a Shanksville car dealership was killed Sunday when the bucket of a small front-end loader dropped and crushed his chest as he was preparing to use it to clear a felled tree at his home.

Meyersdale-area resident Robert Sweitzer, 66, died under the piece of equipment, possibly as he was doing maintenance and accidentally bumped a switch, allowing the bucket to drop, Somerset County Deputy Coroner Wilbur Miller said yesterday.

 

[wroughtn_harv]

Harv, this is harv.

Instead of doing the pit consider what we're doing at a bud's place. I'm building him a one car garage that's gonna be a unique two car garage when I get done with the ironwork at the job I'm on now.

Bud has a thing about tools and cars. I just finished out his <A target="_blank" HREF=http://photos.yahoo.com/bc/wroughtnharv/lst?.dir=/carport+cabinet&.src=ph&.order=&.view=t&.done=http%3a//photos.yahoo.com/>carport</A> last year.

So now we're gonna build him a garage. We thought about the pit thingy. Then I was over at another bud's who builds those haulers for race cars you see at the tracks. When I saw the lift I had an idea.

Bud loved it and has given the go ahead.

We're gonna put in a lift. The kind where he can drive in the little Mercedes classic and then lift it up. Then he can put the old Jag underneath it.

The beauty of these lifts is they don't need much besides good concrete to hold four posts.

From the outside the garage will look like a cedar sided storage shed with just a tad taller roof. Another beauty of the lift thingy is you don't need two stories to stack two cars. You only need to frame out where there isn't an attic and there only has to be enough room for the car to fit. You ain't gonna be needing to get access to it up there.

As you're sitting there seeing three thousand five hundred shiney new dollar bills trying to slip by mama at the door with that look she gets whent the dollars get wanderlust. Well, consider another bud called me the other day and offered me a working two poster for five hundred.

A two poster is the kind that grabs the frame which is kewl but not what we want. We picked it up anyway cause it was a good deal and have already made a good friend a great friend. The four poster has the ramps so you pick up car by the tires.

Bud is one of these guys who is happier than a puppy with two tails if he's got something to take apart, clean righteously, and then put back together. He's been waiting five months for his turn at the plate for me to get his project going. It will happen. Then he'll find something else he's absolutely got to have to get back on my list.

When you look at the carport link what you won't see is the I beams that support it. Sixteen inch I beams thirty feet long that I put in place without any power equipment and with just a sixteen year old kid to help. Just cause I could.

 

[Harv]

Wow! I like your style, Harv! (What else am I going to say to a guy with such a cool name? /w3tcompact/icons/grin.gif)

But seriously, you do some fine work, and better still, you take pictures of it. /w3tcompact/icons/cool.gif

The lift idea sounds awesome, but when it comes to parts, maintenance and things that can go wrong, you just can't beat a hole in the ground. Cheaper, too.

 

[Jeff396]

It's just that I've heard that the cinderblocks can suddenly explode under the pressure. Some will....most won't but you never know.

Jeff

 

[duanet]

I had my '53 Chevy crush a pair of cinder blocks back then as I was just getting the car situated on them. The holes were horizontal, and there's not much strength that way. Concrete blocks are much stronger, and I always position the holes vertically when I use them (which is not very often any more).

One other bad experience I had was while using jack stands with 3 legs and they tipped over with the car on them. The wheels were off and one stand leg went through the trunk floor and punctured (big time) the spare tire, the other jack stand leg just went through the trunk floor. You guessed it - they were aimed the same direction. And if you didn't guess it, always have a leg on one jack stand pointing toward the front of the car and one leg on the other stand pointing toward the rear. Why? Three legs = 120 degrees spacing. The leg pointing toward the front is 90 degrees from the center of the jack; the other two legs are only 30 from the center of the jack. It's not terribly hard when reefing on a rusted bolt to disrupt the balance of the stands, and you either move very fast or become another statistic. Thank God, my friend who was under the car saw it start to move and scrambled out just in time! I still shudder when I think about it, and that happened almost 50 years ago.

<font color=green>Duane</font color=green>

 

[wroughtn_harv]

Well harv there's one problem with that hole in the ground. It takes up too much floor space.

If you do a pit right you will end up just as much if not more in it I'd think. Plus it's a hazard when a vehicle isn't over it etc.

Nah, check out this lift. They're so slick they make WD40 look like glue. It's in a Performax race car trailer. It's twelve volt with the ram up under the top ramp.

Performax is owned and operated by Ronnie Young of NASCAR fame. It's hard to put the image of my friend and a three hundred mile an hour funny car at speed together.

When I get the bandwidth like in my own web page I'm gonna run progress photos daily. It's a crime to have so much fun and not share.

 

[wroughtn_harv]

Darn harv the edit wouldn't allow me to post the attachment!

 

[EdKing]

My one neighbor has a set of ramps that go over a bank on his property. You just drive the car out on the ramps, and you can walk under the car to work on it. It is kind of like the 4 post lift, but no lift.

 

[Harv]

Okay, Harv, that is slick!

I'll start saving my pennies.

 

[Jeff396]

Now this is no joke. I have a 20 x 24 garage that is built over a room in my basement. It's got four big steel I beams covered with metal and then the poured concrete.....pretty unusual for a residential home. I have considered cutting a rectangular hole in the floor so I can work on the cars from the basement. I could then make some plates to go over the hole when it's not in use. My wife thinks I'm nuts but I don't have the height in either of my garages for a lift and I don't like getting the car very high on the jack stands. I think I'm just being practical./w3tcompact/icons/crazy.gif

Jeff

 

[bgott]

One of the biggest problems with a pit, if not the biggest, is the possibility of gas leaking into them and making a big bomb waiting to happen. Basement + hot water heater+ gasoline fumes = ...

 

[MikePA]

Many years ago I was rotating the tires on my 1987 S10. I jacked the rear of the truck up and placed three legged jack stands under each spring pack. Took both rear wheels off and was swapping the tires, side to side. Just as I was lifting one tire into place, the whole truck moved backwards, the truck dropped off the jack stands. Fortunately, the gas tank was shielded because it crushed the jack stand. I had not blocked the front wheels.

 

[wroughtn_harv]

Your message about the gas brought home a memory.

I had changed out my acetylene bottle on a Saturday morning.

That afternoon as I was shutting down I smelled acetylene so I went looking for the source with a bic. The bottle neck leaked and I couldn't stop it.

So I pulled out the rosebud sat there with it until it burned all the contents of the tank.

I'd heard all those stories about how in the shipyards someone had left a torch leaking and when the crews came back from lunch and a spark trickled down to the lowest deck and all hell broke loose.

In my youth when I worked at the phone company a slow day activity was to put an acetylene torch nozzle into an ant den entrance for a short time and then light it. One of our asleep at the wheels left it too long and cracked a sidewalk.

I'm as nervous about getting under things to work on them as some folks are about spiders and snakes. I'm never comfortable and I never go under unless I'm ninety nine percent sure there's no way in heck I'll be crushed.

 

[GSS]

Pittsburgh!

I noticed you are from the Burgh. Where abouts? I live in Tarentum.

- Gerald

 

[rf33]

Sorry to hear about that Bird. It is a real tragedy when something like this happens. Lets all do our best to learn from these kinds of things, and hopefully let this one unfortunate incident help to prevent another.