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How chould you loose a dozer???

stock

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We have moved on and now were lost....
An article in last Saturdays Irish Independent reads as follows:-


Bulldozer found 13 years later

A BULLDOZER reported stolen in 1996was found buried under a fairway on a Texas golf course.
Investigators located the bulldozer at Canyon West golf course in Weatherford when a former worker contacted authorities after noticing part of the Dozer while fertilising the course.

Sorry it a Backhoe.
http://cbs11tv.com/local/Weatherford.Golf.Course.2.954871.html


Bulldozer Found Buried On Weatherford Golf Course
Reporting
Jack Fink WEATHERFORD (CBS 11 News) ―

Investigators made an unusual discovery at a golf course located in the 100 block of Club House Drive in Weatherford. But they found it beneath one of the fairways. Now, detectives are looking to see if the golf course owners committed a crime 14 years ago.

The holes at Canyon West Golf Club attract groups of golfers each day, but it was a different kind of hole that brought investigators to the course in late February. Acting on a tip, the Texas Department of Public Safety, the Tarrant Regional Auto Crimes Task Force and the National Insurance Crime Bureau started digging up the 13th fairway.

Agents found a 9,000 pound Ford rubber tire loader buried 10 feet underground. Special Agent Tommy Reed with the National Insurance Crime Bureau said, "We recover vehicles daily, but something like this is obviously unusual."

Parker County court records obtained by CBS 11 News show that sources told investigators that the golf club owners, Stan Mickle and his father, Wes Mickle, used the stolen equipment to build the golf course 14 years ago, and later buried it.

Agents are also looking to see if the Mickles reported the loader to their insurance company as stolen.

"Thirty-five percent of all insurance claims are fraudulent in some way or another," Reed said.

Court records show that, about three years ago, a former golf club employee was spraying fertilizer on the fairway when he noticed a yellow metal uncovered by erosion. The employee told investigators, "I asked Stan [Mickle] about it and he told me to cover it."

The worker told agents, "I covered it with soil a few days later. Stan put large rocks on top of the area."

Records show that sources are afraid of telling what they know "due to concerns of physical harm" or "for their safety."

However, one person close to the Mickles reportedly told investigators, "The only knowledge I have is what Stan Mickle himself has told me. We have a stolen bulldozer buried on number 13."

"Brand new, something like that would have cost around $40,000 to $50,000," said Reed. "Depending on the equipment, it could have been more. Right now, it's worthless."

Investigators are now combing through reports of stolen heavy equipment both in Texas and out of state.

Both Stan and Wes Mickle could face charges of theft and insurance fraud. Neither have returned calls seeking comment.
(© MMIX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)

Apologies for posting it here but it said BULLDOZER.


Stock
 
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LonestarCobra

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WV
Thats some story. I have a freind who worked for a contractor, and he took "their" motor grader over there and did some blade work. They didnt bury theirs, I still see it working from time to time.
 

digger242j

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I've heard similar stories, especially with all the strip mining that went on in this part of the country.

Serves them right for being too lazy to bury it deeper.

(I'm only being partly sarcastic there. If it's a case of theft or insurance fraud, they deserve jail, but getting caught cause they were too inept to hide the evidence well enough is poetic justice.) :thumbsup
 

surfer-joe

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Well, luckily they did NOT find a "bulldozer. News people wouldn't know a bulldozer from a milk jug.
 

Jt13speed

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Wow this is hilarious!:laugh I actually have heard of people hiding farm equipment and bulldozers in the wooded areas on their several hundred acre farms to avoid them being repoed:avid, but literally burying a stolen loader on a golf course takes the cake.:falldownlaugh
 

powerjoke

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Usually when I "bury" a machine it is just stuck.

Pj
 

Greg

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Same here. Than if you are like me you are to stupid to cover it up and report it stolen. Instead go in after it and do what ever it takes to get it out.
 

Steve Frazier

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It looked to me like a shuttle loader with a power box on the back. My buddy has one just like it to prep driveways for paving. I wonder if there's a statute of limitations on something like this?
 

B&S Grading

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Wow that has to be the funniest and dumbest thing ive seen yet...
 
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powerjoke

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blew up the vid to 200%....its a 445A ? i'm not familiar with the skip-loader's number's

Pj
 

Galute

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Bald Knob AR
Same here. Than if you are like me you are to stupid to cover it up and report it stolen. Instead go in after it and do what ever it takes to get it out.

Maybe that's what happened. They stuck it bad and didnt wanna pay for more equipment to get it out so they just covered it up. I have given thought to that a few times myself. LOL.

Actually, last year one of the guys on our crew buried a 320 cat excavator badly. After nearly a week of us trying to get it out with other excavators, dozers with winches and many many mats we had to surrender and call the insurance company. All that was left visable was the boom and the lights were on. It was really sad to watch it die a slow death as the battery's finally went dead about 4 days later. The insurance company guy said to torch the visable part of the boom off and leave it there but the EPA guy said Hell no get it out! After about 2 months of drying time they hired a guy to come out and get it. He put in 10 well points around it and pumped all the water out then dug it out with another machine. After some pressure washing, all fluids changed, new battery's and computers he fired it up and drove it on the lowboy. We just watched with our jaw's on the ground when it fired up. They paid him 20k to get it out and let him keep the machine. It had 700 hours on it.
 

stock

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We have moved on and now were lost....
I'll say it again "Better to be born lucky than rich" of course a little knowhow goes a long way....
 

watglen

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Maybe that's what happened. They stuck it bad and didnt wanna pay for more equipment to get it out so they just covered it up. I have given thought to that a few times myself. LOL.

Actually, last year one of the guys on our crew buried a 320 cat excavator badly. After nearly a week of us trying to get it out with other excavators, dozers with winches and many many mats we had to surrender and call the insurance company. All that was left visable was the boom and the lights were on. It was really sad to watch it die a slow death as the battery's finally went dead about 4 days later. The insurance company guy said to torch the visable part of the boom off and leave it there but the EPA guy said Hell no get it out! After about 2 months of drying time they hired a guy to come out and get it. He put in 10 well points around it and pumped all the water out then dug it out with another machine. After some pressure washing, all fluids changed, new battery's and computers he fired it up and drove it on the lowboy. We just watched with our jaw's on the ground when it fired up. They paid him 20k to get it out and let him keep the machine. It had 700 hours on it.


WOW!

Maybe this explains the enormous dinosaur bone finds in Alberta. I could never understand how thousands of animals go to the same place to die. Maybe they all walked into a bottomless bog?

Bottomless really means bottomless in your part of the world!
 

watglen

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I was in the columbia icefields recently. Apparently during WW2 a Jeep was lost in a crevasse. They expect to see it pop out of the glacier in a thousand years or so.
 

olddozerhand

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I was working for an 'Ol Boy' out in the Mojave Desert back in '86. All of his equipment were POS. One TD-20 he had was completely wore out. Always breaking down, needed tracks, sprockets, idlers, transmission wasn`t long for this world either. Blew out a track adjuster ram and threw a track. That was the final straw for him. He got mad and told me to bury the D**n thing. I asked him if he was serious and he said "D**n Straight I`m serious". I waited til the next morning and asked him again. Once again he said bury it and get rid of it. So I did. Gouged a BIG hole in the ground, rigged it with a cable and dragged it into the hole and covered it up. As far as I know it`s still there. Was kinda out in the middle of nowhere so not many knew about it....
 

bigrus

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Dozer lost

A fitter mate recounted a story of a D8 that got lost 'intransit' for 6 months in New Zealand. Apparently the machine was loaded onto a rail wagon for transportation but never turned up on site.
The paperwork was a bit of mess & it was discovered parked in a remote siding, nowhere near its correct destination. :eek:
 
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