How do you get a 40 ton truck out of a ditch?

memento · Apr 11, 2008

with BIG tow trucks!

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The Losing Kind · Apr 12, 2008

Amazing! What a great series. How long did it take them to get the truck out?

schumionbike · Apr 12, 2008

I have never seen a tow truck that big before, these picture are sweet, thanks for sharing.

memento · Apr 12, 2008

thanks! :cheers:

The Losing Kind said:
How long did it take them to get the truck out?

well, long story long.. i recently got a new lens and i've been dying to use it. the other day i brought my camera to work, with the intention on taking pictures of this really cool single lane, wooden bridge that's been recently abandoned. coincidently, i had a job very close to the bridge.
i drove past the bridge around noon and quickly realized that i needed to come back in about six hours. lol
definitely not a good subject for blistering noon sunlight.
i keep on driving... seeing as i was working and all.
so the job site turned out to be this HUGE house being built on river front property, at the end of this sparsely populated road.
and that's were all this mess was.

in regards to the question, i don't know for sure.
from when i got there - 30 minutes.
but i dont know how long it took them to hook everything up.
i'd guess the were probably there for a hour or so before i got there.
the driver(dude in the brown in one of the pics..) was delivering 40 tons of gravel for the drive way.
he was trying to get around a double parked van.

it was pretty cool watching the whole thing go down.
they had the crane thing in the back to keep the dump truck from falling on its side and then big daddy was out front.. pulling.
the time consuming part is that they can only pull for about five feet, then they have to reposition the boom truck.
they had to move both tow trucks about eight times before they finally got it out.

LaFoto · Apr 13, 2008

Thanks for the story, too, memento, and for the photos. They alone already explain some of the procedure, but it is also good to know they had to reposition the tow and lift trucks so often!

Battou · Apr 13, 2008

My brother in law once put his in a ditch, surprisingly enough he had the momentum to get out under the trucks own power.....but yet he still needed the thirty ton tow truck given what put him in the ditch to beginwith. There was another time he was outside of Chicago when he got blown over, He needed one then too.

Great shots, I've seen these beasts in action and they are a sight to behold.