[RC] Very Scary Trailer Accident - DarkHorseGoddess
This is from Barb Fey, some of you may know her, she has gaited
horses. Barb is so lucky~!! Raven
**** Monday I met
my friend at a county park for a trail ride. I had Atikus and Tulsa, and we had
a wonderful ride.
On the way back to the trailer we rode into the parking
lot, and saw a guy come from around the back of my trailer, get in a truck that
was parked too close to my trailer for comfort, hop in and drive off quickly. I
thought he had gone behind the trailer to take a leak, and got embarrassed when
two women drove up. Forgot all about it until later.
Loaded up horses;
started for home. I have to turn off the river bottom road onto the road cutting
up through the bluffs. It is a pretty steep hill, and I always take it slow. As
I'm going up the hill, a voice inside my head said, "slow down! Something is
wrong!" As I was putting my brakes on, there was a terrible crash and
bouncing.
The trailer came off the truck. I immediately put on the
parking brake and ran back. The upright part of the jack was under the truck's
bumper, and it was lodged tightly. The little voice said to get the horses out,
which I didn't want to do. I was on a hill; on pavement; on a blind curve; and
they were shook up. Little Voice said "get the horses as far away from this as
you can." Down the hill on my right was a house with a nice arena, so I stuck
the horses in there. A teenager came out; said he'd help me, so we went to get
the trailer out from the truck.
Much to my shock I saw that the hitch AND
cotter pin were gone. The entire hitch and ball were laying on the road under
the truck. The chains were off, and the rod that goes through the ball of the
tongue was unclipped and pulled out. The only thing holding my trailer on
my truck was the electrical brake cord, and the emergency brake
cable.
We thought the emergency brakes were locked, and the trailer
chocked well enough, but for some reason when we moved the truck the trailer
broke away and went flying down the hill. It crashed into some trees and came to
a rest above the are na where the horses were.
It was one of the most
frightening moments in my life. Had the horses been in there they surely would
have been severely injured or killed.
Thank God I got them out.
The kind neighbor loaned me his trailer to
get my horses home, and then towed my trailer off the trees and out of the ditch
with his truck. Everyone is safe, but I'm still in shock.
I told this
story to my neighbor, who is a former St. Louis County police officer. He said
that there are a lot of weird things that happen at that park. Dan thinks that
the guy at the park was trying to steal the truck, and had started to disconnect
the trailer when we came back. My friend Judy said that when she saw him she
got a weird feeling, and thought she should get his license plate number for
some reason. He sped away too quickly for that.
Now I know I can be an
airhead. However, there is NO way that I would hitch up a trailer w/o putting
the chains on; w/o closing the ball latch and inserting the rod pin; w/o having
a hitch and cotter pin in the ball hitch!!!!! The hitch was still in the truck
from Saturday's journey with Mac, and no one would have messed with it in our
driveway. I couldn't have made it from my house over to the park (about 15
miles) if the trailer hadn't been hitched properly in the first place. Our
chains don't have just an "S" hook; they are the type that has a
spring-lever that you have to open up to click the hooks on (hope I described
that well enough).
I thank God that nothing more serious happened. The
trailer did suffer some damage; the jack is ruined and the rear door is sprung.
I'm also thankful that the guy ran off instead of harming Judy or me or
the horses when we came back to the truck. I'm also thankful that the trailer
didn't come off as I was doing 70 mph going across the Mississippi River from MO
to IL, and that no one was coming up the hill as the trailer was careening down.
I'm very thankful that my two wonderful horses got in a strange trailer for the
ride home.< BR> Moral of story; ALWAYS ALWAYS check your entire hitch
assembly if you have walked away from your rig. I used to do that, but got out
of the habit. Make sure everything is as you left it. Who would have thought at
a county park soemthign like this could happen? This is in a nice area of St.
Louis County, and I've ridden there w/o incident for 5 years.
God is
good. God is VERY good.
PS Just found out from someone else on a list
that "according to the Code of Fed Regulations: Drivers of large vehicles
(including RV's, tractor / trailers, truck and horse trailers etc) are actually
required by Federal Law to do a circle walkround check before every journey
even if they have only stopped to fuel up. Basically the buck stops with
the driver if the trailer or any part of the load or vehicle comes off during
the journey."
My trailer is in the shop today, and it is fixable.
Here's additional information I've found out since Monday.
1.
It is illegal to drive with the drawbar (the ball hitchy thing) in your
tow vehicle unless something is attached. You can be ticketed for
this.
2. Locking receiver and hitch pins are cheap and thwarts
theft or tampering.
3. If you have runaway emergency brakes, be
sure you know what type of battery you have! If yours doens't recharge as
you drive, then it needs to be checked frequently AS WELL AS replaced every two
years.
4. Every month the trailer dealership has repairs to do on
RV's, boat and horse trailers, campers, etc. due to vandalism of the hitch.
Older people are especially targets. Guess some idiots get their
kicks out of disabling hitches, and watching accidents happen.
PLEASE
feel free to forward this to anyone that hauls, regardless of boats, RV's, horse
trailers, utility trailers, campers, etc. I don't want this to ever happen
to anyone else.
Barb in southern Illinois Who is very scared when she
thinks of all the horrible things that could have happened, but
didn't...
