Lets talk about those *** Puckering moments

[Dirty Water]

We've all been there, working on slopes that we really shouldn't have. Lets hear some stories.

I've got two.

One was putting in a power trench with a large DitchWitch riding trencher. I was going across a slope, and at points both of my uphill tires where in the air, and I was only kept from rolling by the digging bar being in the ground and I had the backfill blade tilted and lowered (so I was trenching and dozing :D ) to help stabilize it. Definitely not a fun spot to be in.

The other time I was running a rental mini-ex and went to cross a 4'x24" trench. I used the bucket to lift the tracks as I crossed, but the trench edge gave away and I ended up dropping the back of the tracks in the pit. I ended up staring at the sky.

The good news is that you can almost always get yourself out when your in a mini-ex.

[Dirt Digger2]

theres a few...my boss (30 years experience) almost rolled our 15ton trackhoe on a real steep slope a few weeks ago. had the tracks running perpendicular to the slope, when he drug dirt back to him and emptied the bucket the front tracks lifted 4 feet off the ground and he started going over backwards, luckily he could slam the bucket down to stop

me on the other hand just last week got on a hillside that had horsepaths worn down on it. started driving across and the back uphill tire started lifting up...i was able to turn downhill quick enough to prevent a rollover but it got my heart racing.

another one was when i was driving a john deere 4700 across a hill with a full bucket of dirt, rear tires hit a bump and didnt have enough weight holding them down...just enough time to drop the loader to the ground before i had to test out the ROPS

[mattfromNY]

Put my ZTR in the drink last Wed. morning... mowing an account up at the lake and started to go down a hill I've been down before, only this time the grass was wet. Luckily I missed the sea wall and got 'er into the boat launch. Only went in 12" of water, but was stuck, had to drive in a little farther to grab some traction and was able to drive back out! Whew!

Not me, but funny anyway... was golfing one day and two guys came screaming down a hill in their golf cart, cut the path a little tight under a tree, one of the lower branches caught the roof and put them wheels to the sky in no time flat. Golf clubs fell off the back, balls rolling all over the place, everyone on the course saw it... We never laughed so hard!!

[RockSet N' Grade]

Working on one right now that keeps me on my toes. Two tiered yard with two huge unpoured pier pits that I have to pass by going up the slope and down. Each one of these pits could swallow me whole and there is no wiggle room.......I wish they would pour their concrete and let me back fill, it would save on doing extra shorty-shorts laundry loads at night and decrease my stress level. Haven't rolled a machine......but I have taken out sections of vinyl fence, vinyl railings and such.........Hit a gas line the other day following the contractors directions and as he sat there guiding me......when I hit the line and gas started spewing, he yelled "stop, stop, stop!". Little late Pal........he paid the $500 bill for that one.........My new saying around this area is: "No Good Deed Goes Unpunished".

[Mike33]

I did some domb things with my bobcat, but to share a true story of a friend of mine this spring. This guy is 1 hell of a dozer operater, was on a slope not to bad at a lake development. The whole bank gave way and he rode his case 550 in the lake went under and had to un buckel and swim to top. There was a guy fishing close by said **** there he was there he is gone. The water was pretty cold also. This guy is always funny as hell said he didnt mind the water temp until he had to dive in with cable to hook up. It took a 312 cat excav. and a large tow truck to get him out.
Mike

[dozerman21]

Put my ZTR in the drink last Wed. morning... mowing an account up at the lake and started to go down a hill I've been down before, only this time the grass was wet. Luckily I missed the sea wall and got 'er into the boat launch. Only went in 12" of water, but was stuck, had to drive in a little farther to grab some traction and was able to drive back out! Whew!

Not me, but funny anyway... was golfing one day and two guys came screaming down a hill in their golf cart, cut the path a little tight under a tree, one of the lower branches caught the roof and put them wheels to the sky in no time flat. Golf clubs fell off the back, balls rolling all over the place, everyone on the course saw it... We never laughed so hard!!

I used to cut grass on the side back in the day, and I bought a new Dixie Chopper after using a Bunton walk behind for a couple of seasons. The first account I cut with the Dixie had a steep bank with a retention pond. It had rained lightly earlier that morning, and I could usually mow about 7-8 passes around the pond with my walk behind (when it was dry). On the first pass around the pond, my Dixie started sliding down to the 15'+ full of water pond. I spun it around and saved it with about 3' to spare, and used my truck to pull it out.

The first time I ran a skid loader, I was carrying full buckets of dirt about 50 yards each way. I thought I'd raise the bucket up so I could see better...:) , you know what happened. Hit a bump, started to go over backwards, slammed the bucket down, went back the other way... about shat myself. Luckily I don't think anyone saw it.:laugh:

[RockSet N' Grade]

A friend of mine named Jim was/is the finest dozer operator I have ever met in my life. This happened 20 plus years ago. Jim was dozing a hillside in Beverly Hills, had to pee...so he unbuckled, didn't shut down his machine (left it running) jumped on the track and started his business. Machine lurched, threw him down on the ground....ran over his left leg and left arm and stopped right on top of him........They found him the next day, removed both leg and arm and replaced with metal. He still runs equipment with a metal claw and metal foot last I heard.........That incident permanantly engraved "safety" into my head............

[SiteSolutions]

I was running my S-185 out in the middle of nowhere, on 80 acres of hunting land near the top of a big hill. Nothing but a little logging going on up there, and nobody else but me around on that day. I was up there to bush hog some fields to plant greens, and also to try to clean up a few 4-wheeler trails. I had been up and down one trail that had been started by a dozer several years prior. I was trying to connect it to a field by extending it, but I was having a hard time keeping my bearings and had gone back around to the field a couple times to see where I might be trying to go.

It was August, I was hot and dusty and tired, and as I headed back out the narrow trail to go back and reorient myself, I let my mind wander for a split second. That was all it took. I got too close to the edge of the trail and the machine fell off to the left! Left Tires about 4 feet lower than right tires, I had slammed the bucket down and the machine just sat there. After cursing a bunch, I gently lifted the seat bar and carefully got out. I looked it over for a while before I decided to try and get back in and hopefully try to get back on the trail.

I got back in, and turned the machine to face down the side of the hill (counterweight uphill), but it was too steep to back it back up onto the trail. I was in a sort of draw where two parts of the hill come together, where water would flow if it was raining - A sort of swale or shallow ditch down the side of the hill. I decided to ease downhill a little and look for some natural ridge or shelf that would let me cut across sideways, maybe back to the big downhill trail a few hundred feet to my right, where I had been heading when I left the little trail. A couple hundred feet later, I was basically skiing over leaves and rocks, with the bucket all the way down and curled up slightly to keep from getting too tippy. Just in time, I spotted a fifteen foot drop in front of me (would have made a nice waterfall if there was any water) and jerked the machine to the right and onto a flat rock. Twice in an hour I had about choked on my heart trying to jump out through my throat. I walked a half mile back to my truck, got a chain, drug the chain down the trail with my little tractor, walked back down the side of the hill, and chained the back of the Bobcat to a big tree.

That was two times in one hour.

I was so pissed! And when I got over being scared, I tried being resourceful. The loggers weren't working, but less than a mile away was a big JD log skidder with a winch that looked like it came off God's 4x4. I just happened to have a JD key, so I figured what the heck. It took me a minute or two to figure out the controls, and then I was headed down the trail. The balance is kinda funny on those log skidders, so the trip down the trail to get near my machine was fairly intense. I got the back end as close to my Bobcat as I could without leaving the trail, and paid out the winch cable, only to come up a couple hundred feet short. I started down the side trail, turned downhill onto the up-and-down trail, and noticed a really weird sensation like floating. I looked over my shoulder and the rear end of the skidder was about 5 feet off the trail, articulated over to one side (I had been steering to the left) like some X-games skateboarder doing a handstand... that was scary on so many levels I can hardly describe it, but a lot of it had to do with "How the H am I gonna replace this machine I have basically stolen!?!?"

Anyway... as funny as those skidders feel, they are d@mn sure built right. I eased off the brake and let the dozer blade down a little lower and she settled right back down. That was the third time that day I had pictured my name in the obituary section, and that was all I wanted! I put the skidder back exactly where I had found it, put all the diesel I had with me in the tank, and called it a day. Two days later, I went back up the hill, found the loggers, and gave them a case of beer. The real skidder operator drove halfway down the hill off the trail like it was me driving around in my driveway. Let out the cable and pulled me right on out of there. I took my Bobcat home and told the property owner I would finish his greens fields but no more trail work!

[Scag48]

Oh man, where do I start? :rolleyes: I've been in quite a few situations that could have severely injured me I don't even like to think about it anymore. I do have a couple that come to mind.

Last spring I was backfilling behind a foundation wall with our 216. Let me preface this by saying that the wall was too short, vertically, it should have been about 4 feet taller. Needless to say, the backfill made a natural slope into the basement wall, grade was about a 1:3 at the most sloping toward the top of the basement walls. There was no way around this, the lot line was about 7 feet from the wall and the neighbor had large trees that could not be undercut. Grade not only pitched me sidways, it dropped off severly the further I went along my path as the walls were stepped. I got in trouble where the the slope stepped the most. Needless to say, while backfilling I went just a little too far into the "soft" over the edge, machine pitched toward the wall and was up on two wheels. I jumped out and she started to go over, I stood on one of the uphill tires to hold her down. Finally got my old man out to the site to help me get her unstuck all the while trying to keep it from rolling over. Had that wall not been stepped I wouldn't have had this problem. Had I rolled the machine it would have landed on the basement floor about 8 feet below.

Another interesting day was last summer as I was pulling out orchard. I finished a 95 acre job a week ahead of schedule so we trucked our 312 to do a small, 4 acre job for a friend close to home. The 4 acres they wanted me to pull was on a nasty, nasty slope, easily 1:1 all day in the easiest of places. That's fine and good until you start swinging around a "handful" of trees, get's a little scary at times. It's especially fun when you're stoking the pile and the stick is out as far as she'll go you're just hoping to get as much on the pile without having some fall on you. The key to building burn piles is keeping them as narrow and tall as possible, there's less stoking involved and the more cylindrical you can get the pile, the better. Often times, your tracks are touching the pile and you're stacking straight up. Can't see the bucket or the load, you just hope that nothing falls. This is tricky on flat ground, add a slope into the mix and the machine likes to lift itself off the ground. I would never attempt to lift over the side of the machine on any slope, but I finally put myself to the test when I was lifting over the front and 30% of the undercarriage would lift off the ground. Just a bit scary. There was one section of this plot that was a 2:1 that levelled out to an access road at the top of the orchard. I plunged off that road a couple times wondering if I was making a bad decision or not.

[RockSet N' Grade]

Its not a slope story but it just entered my brain from somewhere way back and made me laugh. A buddy of mine was General Contracting this one in Pasadena, California. They were tearing down this home to build a new estate/mini mansion. The dozer came in to demo and he pushed the side into the middle of the house and then thought he'd crawl up onto the slab and crush it all to load it into trucks. Guess he didn't check first, because he crawled onto the "slab" and promptly ended up in the basement. No one got hurt, but it was a kick to see this big old piece of iron sitting in the basement with all the torn down house all around it. What a moment that would have been.........opppss!

[coopers]

I have yet to be in a really bad situation like some of you guys but I have really pushed the limits of the case backhoes I used years ago by driving on a slope so steep that I should have had the hoe down and stretched up hill but decided I was too lazy and just turned the how to face up hill and continued to drive. Not the smartest and it's not very comforting to have to use a leg to support yourself on the side of the machine and hope you don't tip.

Blake
WA

[Duramax8832]

I had an old boss that was loading the screening plant with a Hitachi 300..He dug out all the material behind him, probobly about 10 feet or so down..Then of course he was on the phone talking to someone, hit the pedals to start tracking, wrong way of course went right off backwards..Stood the machine right on the counter weight..We ended up using the D6 to pull him back down to firm ground...He got out, jumped in the truck and left never did see him the rest of the week.

[RockSet N' Grade]

One of my buddies was setting a rock wall this last week. 3' boulder got away and came down and smashed a cylinder....$3000. Brought in another machine, a rental. Another boulder got away, came down and smashed the cab and side of the machine.........got a second rental to come work on the job. Another rock came tumbling down and smashed the side of the machine, killed the track and smashed the drive motor. He thinks he may be in wrong part of the excavating business!

[MarcSmith]

I was loading a mulch truck (top loading semi) with a Bobcat versa handler with the 3yard bucket. I was extending the boom out to clear the top of the truck, as I started to dump the debris into the truck the load shiftted forward and the ass end of the versa handler came about 4 feet off the ground as the debris dumped out. it was juts enough weight shift that far out and that high up. I just envisioned this 50K piece of equipment ripping up a walking floor trailer as it fell forward.

I had to change my shorts...

[SiteSolutions]

One of my buddies was setting a rock wall this last week. 3' boulder got away and came down and smashed a cylinder....$3000. Brought in another machine, a rental. Another boulder got away, came down and smashed the cab and side of the machine.........got a second rental to come work on the job. Another rock came tumbling down and smashed the side of the machine, killed the track and smashed the drive motor. He thinks he may be in wrong part of the excavating business!

Yeah, he may want to hire someone luckier than him to place rocks. Was there just no way to get uphill from the wall?

[smalley360]

Kind of a slope story. I had just received my brand new track loader delivered, its still on the flat bed delivery truck. I live on a steep culdesac and he slid the flat bed ramp off of the truck and placed it on the ground but it was facing down hill. The way he had it chained down he needed to lift the bucket in the air and move it forward the get out and unhook it from he truck (with the bucket still in the air above the cab) as I watched I could see the machine very slowly lifting up tipping over backwards. I thought at first I was seeing things then I looked at the front of the tracks and noticed them lifting into the air off the truck, just then the delivery guy got in and put the arms down and the machine lurched forward back onto the bed. I don't think he even knew, then backed it off the bed like nothing. Boy that would have really sucked.

[RockSet N' Grade]

SiteSolutions - he was setting a HUGE rock wall from the bottom (which was the only access point).

[wcoltharp]

The grading/utility company I used to work for had a job on the outskirts of Nashville. Now, I dont know if you all know anything about the Nashville area but we have some pretty solid/hard rock. Long story short, We had to drill and shoot all utilities and roads due to the amount of rock. Well, the 1st company that did the first round of shots didnt load the holes enough so we were left with huge boulders under the ground that had to be taken out like a jigsaw puzzel. Well, the operator was in one of the 320's and had a rock the size of a small toyota car barely on top of the bucket and told the guy in the Cat wagon (off-road tail dump) to back under the bucket because if he moved at all the rock would fall to the ground. Well something happened and that rock fell allright. I guess he thought he could get control of the rock and boomed in trying to keep the rock stable in the bucket, but it was too late. The rock crused the cab and the only thing that saved the life of the operator was the hydrolic cylinder stopped the boulder from crushing it on him.

I have had plenty of moments where I thought I was about to roll the 963, D6, and the dang tail dumps. That stuff really gets me rattled out there. Even when we are down in the trenches slammin' water pipes together. Those banks dont play games and when your 20ft down and the trench box is only about 1/2 that it gets to you(It was stepped back though).

[kreft]

ok i got a story


it was a few months ago when we had to lift this pipe out of a small sediment pond that was sourouded by woods at the bottom of the hill in an empty parking lot,

my dad walked it before going in to make shure it wasnt swampy and what not, then he drove the L-185 (that we just bought)down the 10' slope and when he got to the bottom the tires sunk in, you couldnt even see the rims.

so lukily they were taking out portables that week and had a teloscopic forklift, so we had to jump the curb go over a big , steep berm ,over big rocks, and knock over some trees.then we had to extend the boom all the way out hook up the straps to the back and extend it in.

thankfulthy we got it out, but that berm i was talking about earlier, we got the fork lift stuck on, three wheels were on the ground we had to then get the skid steer to get the forklift out but some how we did.

[RockSet N' Grade]

We were digging out a backfill to install a drain down by the footing. This structure is an apartment with a garage on top next to a neighbors yard. The neighbor thinks that watering his lawn/garden for two hours everyday is proper. We ex'd it out and my laborer was in the hole hand cleaning against the footing. I saw a crack, beeped my horn and told him to get in the bucket! On the way up the whole thing sluffed off into the hole. Shoulda seen my eyes! Soulda seen my laborers eyes too! Next part of that job was utility trench.......same thing happened and caught my laborer and took both his boots off........hmmmm, happyhomeowner could you please ease off on the watering? We went and got a bigger machine and really went after the utility trench.......by the time that trench was said and done, I was smiling cause you could drive a car down the middle of it, but it was safe for us. And the saga continues........

[wcoltharp]

I have been thrown sideways and slammed into the trenchbox due to trenches collapsing and even though I am safe inside that box it still gets me every time. I have heard to many horror stories of guys getting buried and killed.

[Scag48]

Rockset, don't you just love those sites? Idiot neighbors. I was re-shaping a backyard last summer extensively with our 312, a bit of a squeeze for a big machine, but could get around fairly easily. Next thing I know the neighbor kid is basically climbing up the grab iron on the right side of the machine, you know the one that accesses the engine compartment and fuel spout. I nearly passed out! Scared the hell out of me, I jumped outta the cab real quick. I couldn't get real mad at the kid, I used to be the same way but I would always stay at least 50-60 feet from any machine.

[SiteSolutions]

Next thing I know the neighbor kid is basically climbing up the grab iron on the right side of the machine, you know the one that accesses the engine compartment and fuel spout. I nearly passed out! Scared the hell out of me, I jumped outta the cab real quick. I couldn't get real mad at the kid, I used to be the same way but I would always stay at least 50-60 feet from any machine.

Kids today! That is scary! I probably would have got fired off that job after yelling at the kid but it would have been the adrenaline. Besides, somebody has to try to teach the kid about safety if his parents won't. How old was he?

My boy scares me sometimes; he's almost three and is all boy. Had to go to the doctor yesterday cause he was climbing around on a cabinet, fell and hit his head. Told the nurse "I have bwood. Tan you fiss me?" He knows enough to stay away from equipment when it is operating, though.

[RockSet N' Grade]

We were handling boulders and swinging them around yesterday in tight quarters near a house, a garage and a fence. I was concentrating.....and all of a sudden I hear a yell/scream. Made me jerk, drop the rock and jump inside the cab. The landscaper had snuck up on me and waited.......and then yelled/screamed inside my cab, just as a joke! I was so stunned and still scanning the area to make sure my guys were ok and that I didn't swing into the house or cause damage as he walked away chuckling thinking it was a big joke............another moment of pure magic!

[Fieldman12]

I use to watch equipment for hours when I was little. I learned allot about operating that way. I never once got that close to the machine though. If I did and mom and dad found out I would get a big whipping. In the case Scag was in I would have handled it the same. I would have shut the machine down and walked the kid over to his parents and explained to them he could get hurt seriously. If they did not do anything and depending on how long I was on the job I may consider leaving. Not worth killing a child for a few thousand and loosing every thing you own.

[RockSet N' Grade]

As an aside........we pulled off that Happy Home Owner job yesterday until that landscaper and his part time (full time unconcious) high school laborers leave. Somebody was gonna get hurt and I don't have unlimited insurance, any more patience.........and I just don't have the patience or advanced degree in psychology to try and fix stupid.

[Fieldman12]

I don't blame you a bit for pulling off the job. You can only do so much for a homeowner. I believe in making the homeowner happy but it's a two way street. No one should have to put up with that. When it comes to my safety or other people around me that comes first, then my equipment. Allot of people also (including people that are friends) will let you tear up your equipment if you let them. We ran into that when dad had a dump truck business. One guy wanted us to back on top of a rock pile and dump. Dad told him he would rather not do it. Well dad did it anyway since the guy was watching and supposedly a friend. Well dad ended up breaking a spring out of the deal. From then on we would dump only somewhere we felt we could get in and out of on our own. If we had to be pushed or pulled out we did not dump it there but as close as we could. Around here anything dumped by a dump truck is suppose to be just over the curb. Anything farther which we done most of the time was curtsy to the customer. Problem was most would take advantage of it if ya let them. Not to mention if they did not have something to pull ya out it was a $300.00 to get a tow truck. We was making a minimum of 37.50 within an eight mile radius then it went up but nothing drastic.

[Birdhunter1]

I was mowing an account last year and there was this deep ditch with steep banks so I had the ROPS up on my Toro ZTR, I usually put them down after getting away from the ditch due to lots of bushes with limbs that would snag the rops. since I had mowed that area first that day I left the ROPS up. a little while later I was mowing under a larger pecan tree with lots of low hanging limbs. There was one that I always ducked walking and driving under even though my head cleared it anyway by several inches just one of those things like when you walk through a door with an auot closer. Anyway clipping along at a good mowing speed I ducked my head as always but the ROPS caught and sent the frront end up in the air, which caused the ROPs to clear the 8" branch, when teh front landed hard it threw me forward and of course slammed the sticks forward with me so it caused the mower to do another wheelie. The homeowner was outside and caught it, laughed for weeks afterwards every time I showed up.

After high school I worked for the county highway dept. and since I knew tractors pretty well they put me on the mowing crew. The tractor I was on most of the time was an old Ford 3400 deisel that sat low to the ground, had a very wide stance and a huge rollover system on it that made you feel safer than you probably actually were. I would always get the stuff the batwinds couldn't reach which most of the time meant the tight banks and aroudn road signs and stuff. I was on a bank so steep once that the oil in the engine rushed to one side and the tractor shut off on low oil pressure. I was too scared to get off the tractor and another guy had to slide down the ditchbank to hook up the chain to pull the tractor out because it was too steep to walk on. Oh yeah the rops cage was a few inches from the ground on the downhill side and the tractors wheels were still on the ground and had traction. Literally I think that tractor would have climbed a wall and flipped over backwards if I had tried.

On my Massey Ferguson 135 I have been in some pretty hairy places mowing, but the worst was loading it once on a slight grade. when the tractor put enough weight on the back of the truck to raise the back wheels of the truck up enough to loose traction and truck, trailer and tractor are going downhill and gaining momentum was probably one of the worst.