A potentially dangerous recovery situation - and a lesson learned

Submitted: Sunday, Sep 01, 2013 at 22:33
ThreadID: 104149 Views:6122 Replies:5 FollowUps:28
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I was travelling between Denham and Hamelin Bay last week with my wife when I came across a large motorhome that had driven off the road and was stuck in the dirt at the side of the road. The two mature ladies in the vehicle were in obvious distress so we offered assistance.

I was travelling in my 97 Holden Jackaroo and had a set of Maxtrax with me. I proceeded to remove the excess dirt from under the wheels when I was joined by a grey nomad from Victoria who has just stopped. He said "you should snatch her out mate". I said "no this will work if I get the Maxtrax in the correct position". When the time was right for the recovery this guy was asked to drive the motorhome. Sure enough the vehicle moved onto the Maxtrax and then he floored it and the wheels started spinning at a very high rate resulting in about an inch of rubber being removed from each tyre. The owner was distraught and the guy got out of the cab and said that "I told you that you should use a snatch strap". I wasn't carrying one so he got his. It had seen better days and had clearly been used several times before. and it was well passed his use by date but I didn't see an alternative. We hooked up and he got in the cab at which point I noticed the recovery was being watched by the ladies directly in the path of the snatch strap. I told them to stand well back as things can go wrong. After about three attempts the motorhome was almost out when the bolts on my recovery point snapped and became a projectile. Luckily it didn't hit the motorhome and nobody was injured as I had had the vision to move everybody well away. Our helpful friend then suggested we use the towball to which I replied "**** ****" as its not designed or rated for a recovery.

At this point another 4wd had arrived and finished the recovery.

This was an important learning event in that my original plan was high-jacked by a guy who had limited knowledge but was "know it-all. He was looking for a quick result to enable him to keep to his travel schedule which is very dangerous in a recovery situation. Next time I will complete the recovery myself or I will only offer verbal advice. I will purchase a new snatch strap myself for my next trip and get a good winch on my next 4wd. The Maxtrax do work if used correctly. My old 4wd did really well getting a much larger vehicle out of this situation particularly given that this guy was flooring the accelerator the whole time and digging the wheels deeper into the sand.
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