Originally Posted by JodyH
fuckin A right...
If you see sparks in front of you...someone lost a vic coupling, chicksan spool, hammer union, etc...get ready!
I've even had to dodge a chainsaw.
The single worst thing, right up there with a runaway shitter, was an entire fucking wellhead. Sounded like Godzilla landed.
You and Duane Allman could've swapped stories for a while in heaven !
/closethread
"Rectum?!? It flat out KILLED him!"
Proof that wiping with a poisoned corncob will git ya kilt on da streetz!
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"All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in the rain."
I worked for a friend of mine doing tree work on days he was short on help. We left a job and I was following him down a hill when the whole tow plate ripped of his truck and the tongue of his 10,000 pound chipper dropped to the ground. The shower of sparks went over my truck which was at least 100 feet back. I watched the chipper veer right towards the shoulder, then left towards oncoming traffic, and finally right into a forty foot deep ravine.
Not certain where in NM the OP (Jody H) is located, but prior to returning to my home state of AZ and then retiring a couple of years later, I had an office in El Paso, TX. We lived in Las Cruces, NM, and I made a daily round trip commute of 112 miles into El Paso. 98% of the commute was on Interstate 10. This was between 2002-2006.
Every day of my commute was filled with wonder, disbelief, excitement, skill challenges, and occasionally, terror. I regularly witnessed behaviors that baffled even the most jaded, and almost always demonstrated zero regard for common sense, manners, skill, or sanity.
Mexican vendors with pallets and/or cardboard piled so high on their wobbly-wheeled, bare-tired, homemade (part '67 Chevy, part '55 Dodge, and part '73 Ford) vehicles that defied every known engineering principle, and at times violated laws of gravity.
Drivers who were dumbstruck at challenges like gradual curves in the roadway or distracted by the bright color of a Home Depot bucket that had fallen off a truck. Runaway, disconnected utility and travel trailers. Exploding tires. Aluminum ladders pinwheeling down the freeway towards my windshield at 75 MPH. Low rider vehicles regularly shedding a hood, rear bumper, air dam, or fender as they flew past inches from my rear view mirror. Not once did I witness the driver stop to retrieve the spontaneously jettisoned section of his vehicle.
Tires and wheels (minus an accompanying vehicle) headed in random directions . . . . sometime with, and sometimes against the traffic flow. The source of these tires/wheels could usually be identified by a quick look around, and usually revealed a 3/4 ton Ford diesel pickup alternating positions with the trailer (minus one wheel) it was pulling containing a Caterpillar front-end loader or back hoe precariously close to exiting said trailer.
The "El Paso merge" - a manuever usually performed by an octogenarian in a large, mid-70's sedan in which the driver, while traveling at 25-30 MPH, merged into traffic on the freeway which was traveling at 75-85 MPH. Seldom was this move performed without consequences.
The "New Mexico drift" - a universally favorite style of commuting that involved the random use of the lane you are traveling in as well as the lane to your immediate left and immediate right. Occasionally, just to keep everyone on their toes, this would be expanded to include the use of up to 5 lanes simultaneously as a distracted commuter traveling in the far south lane would decide to exit the freeway from the far north lane, and do so with no signal of their intent other than a determined grimace on their face as they flew past the front of your hood with inches to spare.
I could go on, but won't. Lots of memories . . . . . some of which awake me from a sound sleep at night all these years later.
Of course I have since left that all behind and now live in the greater Phoenix, AZ area. I am in the major leagues now, and everything on the roadways here happens more frequently and faster. I'll save those stories for another time.
Wow, that got expensive real quick!
It did, but mostly in lost revenue. The chipper took it pretty well. The only real damage was to the discharge chute and a wheel well. If you’re in the market for a chipper, you might consider a Brush Bandit (no relationship). They are pretty durable.
Most of the delay was that the parts that were needed had to be made and for the insurance company to fight it out with the truck equipment shop that welded the tow plate.
Take all that you observed and add "oilfield trash" to the mix. Not just trashy people making bad decisions, but heavy, dangerous trashy equipment.
And meth and booze, can't forget those.
"For a moment he felt good about this. A moment or two later he felt bad about feeling good about it. Then he felt good about feeling bad about feeling good about it and, satisfied, drove on into the night."
-- Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy --
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