yep you,ve got it Dan; go instead of whoa while turning around. And went nose first into gully, only a 10 metre drop. He was very lucky; was probably the only place on that gravel road you would want to fall over; anywhere else it would be goodbye man and machine, be 300 metre drop offs on that road. personally is reason in my terrain why I refuse to wear seat belts, when I decide its time to abandon ship on anything, I want to jump there and then. No use going on a one way roller coaster ride.
The diggers; komatsu pc120 was a farmer digging drains, pulled himself sideways into swamp. Calls for the sk135 kobelco for help. He gets stuck in swamp on way in. thrashes around in the mud farrr too long. Calls for a zx120 hitachi to help him, but he can,t budge him and just creates a bigger grave. I showed up next day, by then grave is full of water and kobelco is a 'dead' pull. So decided to winch out komatsu first. Only real angle I could pull from was ontop of hill. Told digger steerer to try and lift and swing digger as I yanked sideways on its nose, but this din,t quite register Anyhow I wrenched him out sideways and in doing so tore the buried track right off it !! Ahh well one out, but its no help with the second one.
Stick on the kobelco was hard up against bank where he had tried to pull himself out, so first had to disconnect stick ram hoses so it could fold in as I pulled. Bladed myself a level hole to anchor myself in; dug her in, and slowly opened her up. Torque converter is absolute magic for winch work compared to direct drive where often its all or nothing. Was up around the 3/4 + throttle mark she started to move and managed to slither it out from its grave :notworthy
then tidy my anchor holes up and head for home.
Roller salvage was about a month later for same guy who owned the kobelco. Was quite a big roller, about 15 tonne and to start with I couldn,t move it with the rollers brakes locked on. Winch would just pulled me up over backwards due to the torque reaction. So got roller running to release hyd brakes, owner hanged onto side of roller and I managed to winch it back up onto road. Needed digger to hold roller while I changed winch position, for a second minor pull, as wasn,t enough room for me and roller on road with a direct pull. Then home.