Here are the Diesel Brothers doing some recovery too. It's pretty funny you posted this today because I watched these two this morning waiting on the rain to go away.

Rex,

Thanks for posting that hay truck rescue. At first I didn't want to spend 30 minutes on that, but I got sucked in (just like the truck) and had to watch it all.

I wonder what those boys charge to do a rescue like that? I sure wouldn't want to be around when a cable that size broke like it did, either.

Ribeye-Rare said:

---

Rex,

Thanks for posting that hay truck rescue. At first I didn't want to spend 30 minutes on that, but I got sucked in (just like the truck) and had to watch it all.

I wonder what those boys charge to do a rescue like that? I sure wouldn't want to be around when a cable that size broke like it did, either.

---

No problem. I can tell you from experience it can get to $10k plus quickly. I have witnessed excavators so toast that they brought in cranes, I've also heard of them abandoned and just buried. I haven't witnessed the abandoned and written off personally, yet.

As far as the Diesel Brothers crew, I would bet they do it for free. They're all about hits on their YT channel and they use the recoveries to drive traffic to their channel and site.

Amazing watching these guys work. Using an excavator is a lot harder than it looks but I'm sure I could stick one too.

I once had a smaller excavator stuck similarly to the first video in a hazardous waste pit at a former refinery owned by one of the bigs. Thankfully the client rep had left for the weekend when it happened. It took us the better part of two days to get it unstuck and out. Multiple pieces of heavy equipment and a big rig tow truck finally did the job. When the client rep got back on-site Monday afternoon and asked about Friday and the weekend we basically told him that we spent the time excavating the deeper side of the pit (where the thing had been stuck) and cleaning off our equipment. He wouldn't have been pissed, but there were likely 100 forms and paperwork we would have to fill out prior to yanking the thing clear. It was a PITA.

This is the worst one I was ever involved in. Luckily I didn't get it stuck but a guy working for us did and it was a rental that we were using to dredge in front of a lake house we were remodeling to sell. Took about six hours and $5K worth of wreckers (2 x 18 wheeler wreckers, one of which broke his winch line) to get it out, not counting the floating excavator that they Lake management let us borrow. I spent three hours laying on my stomach digging through the muck with my hands just to get a shackle on the tow hook. Couldn't dig down to it, because the hole would just fill back in with every shovel scoop. The hoe was almost useless to get it out because the long reach excavators have very little strength. Once it was out, cleaned it up and it was returned undamaged.

equipment is starting to operate itself, so good operators are few and far between.

Ferris Wheel Allstar said:

---

equipment is starting to operate itself, so good operators are few and far between.

---

True of many skilled trades.

I worked for a construction company and heard quite a few stories. Generally if you stop and get help when you start getting in a bind it's not too bad. A lot of people would try and get themselves out first and just make it so much worse. Of course this isn't always the case, sometimes it just happens. I was around a few stuck machines, but we always had lots of heavy equipment onsite and could get them out with a little time and other machines helping. At a project that I wasn't on, but the same company they had to abandon an excavator. They were able to drain the fuel and most of the fluids before it disappeared into the swamp. I believe the company I worked for claimed it on their insurance.

It's weird how the YT algorithms work these days. I logged on at lunch and was suggested an hour long towing recovery video... Yeah, right. I'll just skip through this real quick...
Not. I got sucked in and burned my whole lunch break.