My Christmas Day
12-26-2009, 12:03 AM
#1
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My Christmas Day
Well, I'm starting this early by an hour or so. Last night we were coming home from a Christmas party about 10:00. Boy, some serious drifts out on the country roads. Very unsettling when we bashed one and the idiot light bings at me "check gauges". Volts are at zero. Great, I'm 12 miles from home with what I'm guessing is likely a broken alternator belt from smashing drifts, with my wife, in a blizzard.
Make it home and pull the truck into the shop, start a fire and pop the hood. Cant really even see the motor. The entire engine bay is packed with snow all the way to the hood. Belt is still intact. Dig out what I can, back out truck, scoop snow out of shop and sweep out water.
Pull it back in, dig more snow and wiggle connections on alternator. That did it. Volts are back. Apparantly, all of the snow moved the plug enough to not make contact. Whew! At least I still have a truck and we are home safe and sound.
Christmas festivities have been cancelled for our family tomorrow. I likely won't fire up the tractor or even leave the house until Saturday. No sense moving any snow tomorrow. Went to bed around 1:00.
I got up at 3:45 to ****. Power was out. Nice.
Threw some more wood in the stove, started the gas fireplace upstairs. Figured we would be in for the long haul, as we are on the end of the line. Maybe two houses after us. If someone sneezes we lose power. So, with the high winds, short crew on Christmas, I figured we would be out for a day or two.
Slept in, as nothing else to do. After breakfast, was just heading out to get the generator so I could at least get the well and a few things up an running. Power comes back on at 11:00. Only out for 8 hours. That really surprised me.
So, I've been in the shop changing wheel hubs on the Dodge. Was a good day to do it, other than all of the snow that is still packed in it is creating a lake in the shop.
After swapping the suspected wheel hub, I decided to take the truck for a little spin and to see how the roads are. I have an 800' driveway so I can't really see the road from the house. Get to the road, turn right and 100 yards down from my driveway there is an SUV on it's side right in the middle of the road. There is a tractor near it. I drive as far as I could, as there was a killer 4' drift right in front of the truck. I run out and the guy with the tractor says that he needs help.
Get over there and there is a guy laying on the road, not moving. I telll him that I'll go home, get my cell and my wife (she is an RN).
We get right back there. They had called it in but the ambulance was having a hard time getting out there. My wife sends me home for blankets. I snag two sleeping bags and we put them over him. He is complaining about back an neck pain, can hardly speak, in shock and a lot of pain. We can't move him so we do what we can to keep him warm.
After about 30 minutes a volounteer firefighter shows up. Right about the time he gets there, hypothermia is setting in from the shock and exposure. So he decides that we need to move him but we don't have a collar or a board so we have to do a manual immoblization. I'm holding his head so it doesn't move. We get him into the back seat of a car. I had to keep moving through the car holding his head and then stay in the car holding it. He was barely coherent before and now is pretty much nonresponsive.
The ambulance got to within 4 miles of our place. We made it three with the car as the guy's dad plowed the road with a tractor while we were waiting for the ambulance. When we get stuck again a fire dept. 4x4 shows up so they all move him to that rig to hopefully get him the last mile to the ambulance. They left the kid (the guys brother) and I stuck in the snow and took off.
Fortunately, I was able to get us out after digging for a few minutes and went back the way we came.
All in all, took almost two hours. I haven't heard anything since.
So, that was my Christmas day. Hope yours went better.
Make it home and pull the truck into the shop, start a fire and pop the hood. Cant really even see the motor. The entire engine bay is packed with snow all the way to the hood. Belt is still intact. Dig out what I can, back out truck, scoop snow out of shop and sweep out water.
Pull it back in, dig more snow and wiggle connections on alternator. That did it. Volts are back. Apparantly, all of the snow moved the plug enough to not make contact. Whew! At least I still have a truck and we are home safe and sound.
Christmas festivities have been cancelled for our family tomorrow. I likely won't fire up the tractor or even leave the house until Saturday. No sense moving any snow tomorrow. Went to bed around 1:00.
I got up at 3:45 to ****. Power was out. Nice.
Threw some more wood in the stove, started the gas fireplace upstairs. Figured we would be in for the long haul, as we are on the end of the line. Maybe two houses after us. If someone sneezes we lose power. So, with the high winds, short crew on Christmas, I figured we would be out for a day or two.
Slept in, as nothing else to do. After breakfast, was just heading out to get the generator so I could at least get the well and a few things up an running. Power comes back on at 11:00. Only out for 8 hours. That really surprised me.
So, I've been in the shop changing wheel hubs on the Dodge. Was a good day to do it, other than all of the snow that is still packed in it is creating a lake in the shop.
After swapping the suspected wheel hub, I decided to take the truck for a little spin and to see how the roads are. I have an 800' driveway so I can't really see the road from the house. Get to the road, turn right and 100 yards down from my driveway there is an SUV on it's side right in the middle of the road. There is a tractor near it. I drive as far as I could, as there was a killer 4' drift right in front of the truck. I run out and the guy with the tractor says that he needs help.
Get over there and there is a guy laying on the road, not moving. I telll him that I'll go home, get my cell and my wife (she is an RN).
We get right back there. They had called it in but the ambulance was having a hard time getting out there. My wife sends me home for blankets. I snag two sleeping bags and we put them over him. He is complaining about back an neck pain, can hardly speak, in shock and a lot of pain. We can't move him so we do what we can to keep him warm.
After about 30 minutes a volounteer firefighter shows up. Right about the time he gets there, hypothermia is setting in from the shock and exposure. So he decides that we need to move him but we don't have a collar or a board so we have to do a manual immoblization. I'm holding his head so it doesn't move. We get him into the back seat of a car. I had to keep moving through the car holding his head and then stay in the car holding it. He was barely coherent before and now is pretty much nonresponsive.
The ambulance got to within 4 miles of our place. We made it three with the car as the guy's dad plowed the road with a tractor while we were waiting for the ambulance. When we get stuck again a fire dept. 4x4 shows up so they all move him to that rig to hopefully get him the last mile to the ambulance. They left the kid (the guys brother) and I stuck in the snow and took off.
Fortunately, I was able to get us out after digging for a few minutes and went back the way we came.
All in all, took almost two hours. I haven't heard anything since.
So, that was my Christmas day. Hope yours went better.
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12-26-2009, 12:14 AM
#2
Want fries with that?
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Damn, that's a crazy *** story. The highlight of my Christmas was seeing some douchebag smash the front of his BMW into a snow drift 'cause he was so cool that he could do anything. I would have stopped to help, but he was tailing me for about 10 miles and was the kind of guy with huge white sunglasses and his hat on backwards.
It was that or getting my Miata stuck in an inch of snow testing out the new clutch. lol.
It was that or getting my Miata stuck in an inch of snow testing out the new clutch. lol.
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12-26-2009, 05:48 PM
#8
Wow John...good work, although I'm sure to you it's just doing what you could and should have done.
Makes our family quibbles seem insignificant. Everyone got there safe, everyone got home safe, and we all saw each other for one more Christmas.
We should be glad.
My Christmas was centered around food. I've cooked for almost two days straight. But everyone enjoyed it, which is why it was worth it. Kids had a blast and were excited about their gifts. First year I didn't ask for a single thing, didn't hope for a single thing, and didn't get a single thing, and I couldn't have enjoyed the spirit more.
It really is about giving, and you, my friend, may have helped give the gift of live (or preserve it). Props.
Makes our family quibbles seem insignificant. Everyone got there safe, everyone got home safe, and we all saw each other for one more Christmas.
We should be glad.
My Christmas was centered around food. I've cooked for almost two days straight. But everyone enjoyed it, which is why it was worth it. Kids had a blast and were excited about their gifts. First year I didn't ask for a single thing, didn't hope for a single thing, and didn't get a single thing, and I couldn't have enjoyed the spirit more.
It really is about giving, and you, my friend, may have helped give the gift of live (or preserve it). Props.
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12-26-2009, 09:53 PM
#9
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Join Date: Jun 2009
Location: Lancaster, PA
Posts: 239
Total Cats: -2
Props man, sorry to hear your christmas didnt so go so smoothly but like stated above you probably did indeed save that person. Doing stuff like that is rough and does/will bother you but will eventually pass. But in the end you did the right thing.
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