Last night - Epic rescue...

[ignat]

 

[Trevor]

Wowee,

Now I am very much a newbie still to this forum and have only had one trip out on the plains and met a few of the people named in this tale, but absolutely hats off to all concerned for the "no nonsense - drop everything response", full marks Guys. I would be absolutely cacking my pants in that situation.

This forum never ceases to amaze me.

 

[Jimbo4x4]

 

[Chris]

You had the snatch block on the wrong side of the vehicle for starters guys. Should have been under the passenger headlight not the driver's.

Great story so far, but one to read through fingers held over my eyes.... Keep typing

C

 

[sae70]

You can feel the refresh rate on this page

 

[Jon Wildsmith]

I think we need more pictures

 

[Crispin]

so we pick up from where Tommo arrives with Ian and Greg 15 minutes after. Sorry, no more pics. It was more a "let's get out of here" mood.



Ian, who sadly is no longer a member of this esteemed forum utters these as his first words: "So, is your ATRAC not working then?" I am sure we will all miss his great humour. Well, some might. He had to take a dig at me and my ATRAC

Ian and Nicky (Spelling?) get the Tirfor set up with a strap against the chassis rail and a tree. We try a perpendicular pull but the more we pull the more the suspension compresses. We dig a little in an attempt to soften the bank. It adds a little advantage but quickly the tirfor has reached it's capacity. Ian points out that it has a sheer pin and we don't have a spare.

Tommo takes this opportunity to point out that, had I still had the OEM suspension on, it would have compressed long ago and put less strain on the pull. The irony...

Greg arrives with Kelvin from Brighton. Bear in mind folks, we are now slightly North of Stevange. Junction 7 off the A1.

Greg quickly assesses the situation and starts telling us what he is going to do. Actually, scrub that - he just started doing it like a machine. Before he got stuck in, we pointed out that LB was also stuck. (I think he muttered something but not too sure... ) After doing his rigging bit and using the high-lift jack in reverse and the tirfor, LB moved in the right direction. It was actually pretty cool to watch. So now LB is out of the way, he cracks on.

As much as I wanted to help, tried to help, tried to pass a strap when I thought one was needed, I appeared to always be 5 minutes behind his train of thought and just plain in-the-way. I stood and watched. It would appear Greg and Kelvin talk at a frequency that us mere mortals cannot hear. They had clearly done this before.

After much rigging of hi-lift and tirfor, I get told to get into my car and start the engine. I had been strapped in the front to a tree, tirfor to the front pulling me uphill, hi-lift at the rear pulling me uphill.
"START SPINNING" came the order. In reverse, high idle, low range, clutch out. ATRAC did it's best to stop the wheels spinning but eventually gave up and just let them spin (seems to not work when very very slowly)
With Ian pulling on the tirfor (damn, the man can make funny faces when straining!) and Tony cranking on the hi-lift, up I came. It really was remarkable at how easy it was when you a) had the right equipment and b) the know-how. I think B overrides A though.

The only reason we stopped was because of the width of the lane. We had run out of rope on the tirfor and the hi-lift was also done. Had the lane been wider, it would have been a lot easier.


A bit of re-rigging and we start again. Oh, wait, the hi-lift snaps a bolt. Tommo whips out his [insert clever name] (a climbing thing the army issue for helicopter evacuations) and we use that. Everyone seemed un-phased by the fact it was designed to hold the weight of solder yet we were about to hang Gunnery Sergeant Hartman from it... They were either un-phased or hid it well.
Some more pulling and I am out. I am on level ground and my LC no longer has gull wing doors. (The dead-weight of a door is amazing! )

As soon as they slack off the ropes, I am on the move again. A quick strap around the roof rail and onto a tree affords some time to unhook everything and re-rig.

So now I am on level ground, Ian and his tirfor from my front to a tree, Tony in LB and the winch from the back, Kelvin with the doubled strap from roof rail to tree. In order to take up the slack in the strap, he took our spade and wound it up. I suspect the energy stored in that would supply electricity to a small African village for a week.

On command, I let out the clutch (spinning / slipping wheels) and Tony takes up slack with LB and the winch. Ian slowly lets out the tirfor. Backwards, towards freedom I go.
The funniest part of the whole evening was hearing Greg telling Tony (in no uncertain terms ) to stop modulating the winch. The winch though was straining against slow coach Ian. Looking forwards, all I could see in my headlights was Ian's relatively stationary body with a blur of arms. Seriously, if the man was in a row boat it would be skimming across the ocean. The only thing to rival the speed of the arms was the speed at which he rotated faces. Like before, he had all sorts going on. I am not sure how had the pull was on the tirfor while LB was pulling on it but I can honestly say, he was moving at an amazing speed for longer than I think I could have

After a bit more pulling and rigging, I was away from danger and past the point where LB had also slipped. I was home free. Or so I thought.....

Not quite following instructions from Greg , I ended up sliding towards a tree. The slide was pretty much arrested by 6 people pushing against the side of my truck.

After some more instructions and lots of guidance , I made it to the turning point and made a U-turn.
In a lame attempt at an excuse for not following instructions, I learnt afterwards to explicitly trust those spotting you. See, I did not. I could not see out my mirrors and, could not see behind me. I was driving backwards blind. When I thought I saw something or headed in a direction I thought was good, it turns out either, I was wrong or, Kelvin, Greg, Tommo, Tony, Ian or Nicky had already seen it and knew what was happening. Always ahead of me. Learn to listen and trust. (Unless your spotter is a Lemming)


So, after a turn around, we headed off to the main road and cleaned and swapped back ropes, straps etc etc. After much thanking, we each headed off in our own directions.



End of part two....

 

[Trevor]

That was one hell of a day Crispin, shame about the damage to LB. Anything sustained to yours as a result?

 

[Jon Wildsmith]

it doesn't take much going wrong to make recoveries like that go bad, good job you had some proper help I bet you're not the first person to slip off there either.

 

[Chas]

That was an epic tale Crispin , what can you say about the help from members that's just a phone call away? Tommo, Ian, Greg and Kelvin you're all diamonds and if I missed anyone out, consider yourselves included.

 

[Crispin]

Synopsis:

What was a pretty simple situation, and one you could easily get into, quickly (well, over the course of a few hours) turned into a cockup of monumental proportions. Let's face it, from having a slight slide and not reversing out (I thought I was committed, I thought I could make it), we managed to turn it into a full blown rescue effort.

This was 100% down to inexperience on my part. I console myself in the fact that we all start with inexperience. Some though have the gift of thought. I lack it

What truly amazed me was a quick call to Tommo asking only to try get hold of Greg so I could possibly pay for his services (or some other answer to my desperate plea). Within minutes, I got a call back saying "We're on our way." We, Us, people, plural. Not "Well, ok then, I've just walked the dogs and the Mrs is in bed anyway so I'll pop around." It was a case of "We're on our way". 2 hours journey just to reach you. Only then will we start sorting things out. No one arrived there thinking "Well, it will take 1.5 hours to get there, 30 minute recovery and 1.5 hours back home so not too bad." People knew they were going to be there for a while and then drive back another 1.5 hours to get home.
Added to that, after Gary dropped the hint here, there were others who also offered up their help. Very very humbling.

In no particular order, I cannot thank these guys enough. Tommo, Ian, Nicky, Greg, Kelvin, Tony (wait, it was his fault we were there! ) as well as the folk who offered on the forum. It's good to know that there are folk willing to help. (Please PM your numbers, I'll be out on the lanes again next weekend )


Damage report:
It got to a stage, before the troops arrived, that I had resigned myself to a lot of damage. I had also started thinking "F-it, let's just brute force and ignorance it out of here". As I cleared the branches and trees, I asked Ian to have a look as I was still in the truck spinning the wheels. he reported no scratches. Big bloody dents but no scratches. He was of course joking. There really is not a single mark. Maybe some new pin stripes but that is it.

The biggest damage was to my door trim. I pulled it off. When trying to close my new gull-wing doors, I held it but the lip. Turns out, the lip was the plastic trim. it sounded like machine gun fire followed by a bomb going off as the 16 odd clips let go and the door slammed shut. There is no damage though so I will try clip it back on, failing that, new clips from Ian.


The reason for the opening in the trees:
While it was still light and Tony an I had time to ponder things, it dawned on us why there was an opening in the trees. Someone else had suffered the same fate, only faster. There were lots of snapped trees (couple of inches think) and branchs etc. Opposite, there was a farmer's field which had fresh marks in it where they had clearly called farmer Giles and his tractor and brute force pulled the vehicle out sideways.
I was afraid it would come to that which is where damage would certainly occur....
I looked but I could see no Land Rover parts




I think, that is about it. It was one hell of a way to spend a Sunday night. It was a massive learning curve. And, at the risk of sounding soppy, it was humbling to see how people would come together to help out.


Hopefully you've all enjoyed the tale....

 

[Trevor]

And now the question we all want to know.............................What did Mrs Crispin say?..............Or what was your version to Mrs Crispin?

 

[sae70]

Awsome

Hopefully you've all enjoyed the tale....

Yes very much Thank you

 

[adrianr]

Respect to you all. Glad it ended well.

 

[Crispin]

And now the question we all want to know.............................What did Mrs Crispin say?..............Or what was your version to Mrs Crispin?

She just happened to call me when things were starting to go bad and apparently I had said something along the lines of "I'm in a bit of a situation, about to slide into a river" and said I would call her back. I was weary of my battery. Smart phones don't have smart batteries A few SMS exchanges through the evening kept her in the loop.

When I did get home, she was not the most receptive person. When I showed her the pictures she exclaimed "Is that it???"
The notion of "river" has slowly festered into "he's trapped in his truck, on its side in the Nile and to top it all off, it's in full flood".

Things also eased when she heard there was no damage. She had been wondering what a flooding Nile could do to you.

 

[Gav Peter]

Yum, I enjoyed my popcorn too...

Glad everyone & [strike:2uvq1eh8]every[/strike:2uvq1eh8] most things survived unscathed - well done chaps & chappesses

 

[Ian Rubie]

Crispin has let me back on the forum for one more post. If I promice to be good and not take the p*ss out of the almighty ATRAC system he will let me stay, on probation.

Nice write up. I did not say at the time but I am currenly suffering an injured elbow. That explains some of the faces I may have been making. Not fully sure an evening on a hand winch is what the Dr meant when he said rest it

Ian

 

[Chris]

Damage to LB Nooooooo!

And I have no stickers left to send you

Chris

 

[TonyP]

Looking back and in hindsight it would have been better to have stayed indoors and ignored my cabin fever! Much easier changing the channels on the TV with a thumb!

As Crispin has mentioned, reality is that we were inexperienced which resulted in a lot of folk being dragged out on a Sunday evening. I am truly humbled and very embarrassed that we allowed ourselves to end up in that position.

It could quite as easily have been me in the ditch, in fact the tree that ended up holding LB was the only thing that stopped it.

Damage to LB, well firstly I am glad it was LB that sustained damage as opposed to Crispin's daily drive. Let's be honest, that is why I bought LB... was I grim and a bit quiet at one point.... sure, I am not happy damaging a vehicle, but that's why I have LB. Couple of more dents to the front fender (I knew it was the right decision to not replace that ) bent sill and the strip that runs along it, new scratches to the roof, broken door mirror, and I bent the a bar that the rack sits on. All easy to make good. Oh and I need a new winch rope, so all in all we got off lightly.

Thanks to a great rescue to all.

On a side note, the rear spotrs and front flood lights worked really well

 

[karl webster]

Great post crispin. Glad its not just us boys who get into these silly no win situations!!!

and

karl