Welcome sorry for your bad luck

I have done the same thing as you but I was lucky enough to get back in the seat before it ran away from me!!!!or over me

 

I've been there and done that. Lucky for me, only my truck was damaged. In my case, I reached in to pop the hood, truck pointed down hill, and pulled the e-brake instead. The truck stopped after going over 600 feet downhill when it hit a tree. Had a pretty good speed going by then. Lucky it was through the woods and not on a road.

Another time, I wanted to get the whole truck lifted. I drove the front onto ramps, then set the brake. Next I got my jack stands out and my floor jack placed under the rear pumpkin. As the rear tires started to gain clearance, the truck rolled off the ramps with the differential staying with the rolling floor jack. It parked the rear tire on my hand. The front tires now on flat ground but the ramps still there so I couldn't push it off. I was home alone. 4 hours later, my wife came home and moved the ramps and gave the floor jack a couple more pumps. I lost all my finger nails on that hand, but nothing broke. I could have bleed to death, I was told. It was close.

 

Thanks to all of you for your kind thoughts.

 

I had a similar accident a few months back. Loading a racecar for a friend, the car was on a pretty steep hill. Backed the trailer up to it and starting wenching the car on the trailer. My winch (cheap winch) has a hand tighten clutch, didn't check to make sure it was tight. The car made it up to were the back tires just touched the ramps, then started rolling backwards. It rolled 40' back into a big ford wrecker. Crushed the right rear quarter panel, and cut the sidewall on a almost new tire. The ford wrecker had a white paint mark on the huge front bumper (homemade).

Now I check the handclutch to make sure it is tight everytime.

Hope you recover soon, and welcome to DTR.

 

This sounds like a simple mistake (pulling the brake release to see if it were not jammed, not looking at the effects of taking the brake off). I read where others have done simular or had their vehicle lifted, etc... but that is not always the case.

Sometimes, you go out to work on your vehicle and have absolutely no intentions of moving the truck or pulling levers. I remember a certain individual was running wires and tubing from the firewall to the A-Pilar. He was kneeling on the driveway, leaning into the floorboard area and reaching way up behind the dash when he touched something and a familiar thump was heard.

As the truck moved backwards, the torso pulled the knees up and the left thigh kinda got caught between the rest of the leg and the bottom of the door as the truck continued down the driveway. (If you can't visualize that, get on your knees and lean back till your butt is on your ankles and your knees come off the floor then continue backwards till you are on your back. Somewhere along there, take a 2500's door and move it along the thigh as the theigh gets higher and the door moves towards your torso.)

Luckily, the truck was in gear and that did slow it down. As the truck drug this guy down the driveway and into the street, he was thinking if it was possible to let go of the floor pan, sil plate, and roll out of the way of the front tire which never looked so large before, by the way. The thought here was if the front tire caught the foot, it would pull the person out of the front of the truck and do a lot of damage.

Anyway, the guy rode the truck down the driveway and into the street where it stopped without hitting anything.

The truck was put back into the driveway and wheel chocks were put in place. It took nearly 6 months for the bruised and injured leg to be normal again (no bones broken). There were no witnesses so I can tell this story about "that guy" anywhere I want to.

I guess the lesson here is you don't have to pull the parking brake release to release the parking brake. Sometimes, you can do it by fiddling behind the dash where the parking brake mechanism lives. Prepare for this if this is where you are going to be fiddling.

 

parking brake applied and in gear.. always when working on it

 

Uhhh, Welcome to DTR

 

Thanks for sharing your story with us, that took guts. I wish you a speedy & full recovery.

Most of us (that work on our trucks, houses, etc.) inadvertantly get into trouble. There called accidents for a reason. I know I have far more close calls than I care to mention. Your story serves a VERY USEFULL reminder to be careful & be safe. I know that after reading your story, I will be safer for the next several months. Hopefully, someone wil post their close call/accident (please don't misconstrue this as me wanting something to happen to somebody, but accidents do happen) in a coupel of months so I can be reminded again.

 

Glad you're ok.

Had my 16' equipment hauler (bumper pull - pretty heavy trailer) unhooked (wheels NOT chocked) sitting under my carport. Had my F250 sitting cross wise on the driveway outside the carport. Driveway has a slight downward incline. Stepped up on the rear of the trailer, which lifted the front coupling, I fell onto the trailer as it rolled down out of the carport (kind of like surfin'...), and watched the coupler plow into the side of the F250 bed - sort of like an ice breaker goin' through the arctic.

I was sore, embarassed,......

I will NEVER make that mistake again. I chock-block everything. I knew better - lucky no one got hurt. All of us make mistakes. Hopefully we don't repeat them and also learn from others !

 

Following up on what Mark just said, I chocked my wheel while I was tooling on my truck Saturday.

Oh, and good story Bonshawman. If you had a video camera running you could have made some money with that fiasco.

I've shared my bonehead stunts here before, it's called LIFE. We do our best to be safe, but most of the time only if we are thinking about what could happen.