Friday, November 21, 2008

My Husband is a lucky man!

He's married to me! Ha, Ha, Ha.

Seriously, Bruce went trucking this evening (he drives an eighteen wheeler) and he took H2 along. (H1 is at a friends house overnight.) I used my time alone productively, I cranked my I-tunes loud and started cleaning the house. A half hour later Bruce called and said, "I've got a real problem here, you need to come right away. We are fine, just bring the pickup and a log chain, we are 5 miles east of town."

I could see red and blue flashing lights about 2 miles before I reached them. There were other vehicles stopped along the highway with their hazard lights flashing. It seems his trailer had come unhitched from the tractor while they were traveling at full speed down the road! The trailer brakes automatically locked up so it didn't travel too far. It had veered into the oncoming lane and came to rest on the opposite shoulder with the front part of the trailer leaning into the ditch. Thankfully no one had been driving in the oncoming lane. Gives me chills, thinking about the damage that trailer could have done to another vehicle. This incident could have ended so horribly.

The trailer was still upright, it took a little maneuvering to get it fully back onto the shoulder where Bruce was able to hook it onto the tractor. The only damage was a small air leak where an air hose coupler was loose! I taped it up, and he drove away! No damage! No citation from the nice police officers. Is that lucky or what? I'm really surprised he wasn't given some kind of ticket, I would have given him one if I were an officer.

Now I am the proud owner of the perfect burn if Bruce should ever talk about how awful women drivers are. "At least we don't lose our trailers while speeding down the highway!" I can't wait to use that one. He he he. Bring it on bad boy!

7 comments:

Aunt Krissy said...

That is a good one!

Anonymous said...

Wow, I'm sure he feels very thankful at this point.

Tami Weingartner said...

Ummmm....I really need to know how the trailer came to be detached. Please find out. Was is mechanical failure? Or not coupled properly. Goodness scary. But I could use this story as a training sessions for the guys. Maybe stop them from making the same mistake...if indeed it was operator error.

Anonymous said...

I'm guessing the kingpin was sitting on top of the locked jaws of the fifth wheel instead of in them! Sure glad Bruce and H1 are okay!!

Slug-A-Bed said...

Bruce thinks he did his normal brake check that the fifth wheel was locked in place. Evidently it was not locked and was sitting on top as Logspliter guessed. The rough road they were on bounced the kingpin up and off the fifth wheel. We are so greatful things happened as they did. It could have ended horribly. There was traffic about 15 seconds later in the oncoming lane. Many lives could have been changed in an instant. Bruce said it was one of the worst moments of his life to see the trailer veer into the oncoming lane.

Anonymous said...

Yikes! I'm so glad everyone is ok and that no one was driving in that other lane. So scary.

Leilani Schuck Weatherington said...

I saw your profile on someone else's blog that you like Bonnie Raitt. Have you heard this version yet? It's wonderful...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=St9RvdtvLeE