quote:
quote:
I broke my own leg with my truck once.
Story time...
The rear u-joint in my truck was going bad, so one Sunday afternoon I decide it's time to swap it out before I end up with a drive shaft on the ground driving down 59. No big deal, I've done this more than once - so I crawl under my truck and proceed to unbolt the yoke and pop the drive shaft free from the rear differential.
I should have known something was not right when it took a great deal of force to pop the shaft out of the yoke. But no, that red flag was ignored. I went and got a bigger screwdriver to give me more leverage. Again, red flags and blaring sirens, along with a chorus of "you are a a dumbass!" was completely ignored.
I finally pop the shaft out of the yoke, and - quite shockingly I might add - without the transmission park gear keeping my truck from moving, it starts rolling. (Obviously I had neglected basic safety, such as parking break, wheel chocks, etc. like a complete and utter dipsheet). With me under it. Not good. I thought for a second about trying to shoot out the side, but was worried about getting run over by my front tire, so I ended up acting like a squirrel and kind of just freezing in place. At least I had enough good sense to lay flat, not completely freak out and let the truck roll over me. The front differential barely misses my head, but I still get caught by the front axle, so I roll along with the truck as its rolling down the driveway. At some point, my right leg gets caught up in the steering linkage - broken in 2 places, lost about 2 square feet of skin, scared the ever living sheet out of me, etc.
Luckily my parent's neighbor (was at their house in between moves from AZ back to TX at the time) was outside working in her yard and heard my scream for help once I realized that I wasn't dead. Got to spend the rest of the day and most of the night at Hermann hospital in Houston, and there nearly got killed by a morphine OD by the nursing staff.
It was lots of fun. And I still have to get mentally prepared to crawl under a vehicle (or anything that moves for that matter) to this day.
All because I started a task with way more on my mind that just the task and failed miserably to even implement the most basic of safety measures.
