What's your scariest moment on a backhoe?

[chroniekon]

I'm new at operating a backhoe. I recently purchased an older John deere for use on my small farm. The more I get comfortable with it's use, the more I realize there are some safety concerns I'm probably not aware of. I've been around farm equipment all my life and consider myself to be someone with a fair amount of common sense, but at the same time realize there are safety issues that come up that you just never would have thought of that can get you into a dangerous situation. It's a continuous learning process. Things you take for granted that can get you 'injured or seriously killed'.
So what caught you off guard and led to an accident or a close call?

 

[RonG]

Carry your load low and always be thinking about plan "B" in case something that you planned did not work as planned.Ron G

 

[nilzlofgren]

I was digging a swimming pool one time, when the wall gave way. Luckily, I was digging the shallow end. Also, I was facing perpendicular to the wall I was digging, so it was as if i simply backed into the shallow end of the pool. Always wear your seat belt, and never try to jump from the machine, if it starts to tip over.

 

[POND DIGGER]

Scariest moment would have to be purchasing a backhoe from out of state once it arrived and I went to unload it from the trailer I discover that the brakes that were advertised as weak were in fact not working at all!! I almost flipped it of the side of the trailer. If thats not enough I have one more, digging out my pond I lift a little to much of a bucket full on an extended hoe and the machine tiped over until the bucket finally caught it. Needless to say I took a break after that and watched the nascar race the rest of the day.

 

[digger242j]

Great topic.

One I thought of immediately, and another that Pond Digger reminded me of...

The first one involved going about 100 feet down a slope to expose a sewer lateral and trench up the hill to the house. There was more slope below the sewer main, with a retention pond at the bottom. My plan was to lock the brakes, lower the front bucket and stabilizers, and essentially drag myself down the hill, then use first gear to add some thrust, and the hoe, to push myself back up as I dug.

(These days I'd say use an excavator, only an idiot would try to take a backhoe down there, and I'd be right.)

Anyway, going down worked out fine. I exposed the end of the lateral, and started my way back up. I'd dug enough for a couple lengths of pipe, and began to push forward again, but I put in a little too much down pressure, and lifted the rear tires, or more particularly, the left rear tire, a few inches off the ground. That meant that the right rear tire was free to roll downhill, even though I was in forward gear. The bucket slipped, the whole machine started downhill, and only stopped when both left side tires, rear and front, were in the trench, allowing the left stabilizer and front bucket to make contact with the ground once again. The bucket smashed the heck out of the end of the lateral, so once I got straightened out I had to chase even further downhill to fix that problem.

We had a 955 hilift on the job, and used it, and enough chain to reach me and that's how I got back up the hill and finished the job.

(Hey, you asked for scary moments, not intelligent ones.) :cool2

The other one was taking that same backhoe up onto a tilt deck trailer. The deck was a little wet, and the brakes on the hoe weren't quite right. After taking a couple of tries, and not making it on, I thought I'd try second gear and a little momentum. The front end bounced up so I was teetering on the rear wheels, but starting to spin them anyway. I knew if I stepped on the brakes, one of them would grab, and the other wouldn't, and I'd be turned sideways in a heartbeat, so I did the only thing that I could, which was to throw her into reverse, and go backwards, in a big hurry, but fortunately in a straight line. It was a pretty un-graceful landing anyway.

One of the carpenters saw the whole episode. He stopped by the porta-potty, walked on over, and offered me a big handful of TP. (Didn't really need it, but it was close...)

 

[El Hombre]

When my 5550 wheelied and started to pivot downhill, that got my attention. Got the boom down and that stopped it. I was on my driveway, nice steep downhill if I didn't get it under control. Put 1000 pounds of rocks in the bucket and then drove it up.

Neighbor was loading his D-4 size dozer on a trailer that was hitched to his 5 ton dump truck. As soon as he got the dozer on the back half of the trailer, the front of the trailer pivoted up and lifted the rear wheels of the dump truck off the ground. He was on a 15 degree downhill slope, no parking brakes on the trailer or the front wheels of the truck. Whole train rolled down the hill until it flipped, he lost his left arm up to the shoulder.

Anything yellow and slopes are a bad combination....

 

[Dwan Hall]

concentrate on what ever it is you are doing, nothing else. if something brakes that concentration stop what ever it is you are doing until you can get it back. That means no buddy's around you talking about the game last weekend or the girl they scored with, or the new beer down at the pub. Distractions cause acidents.http://www.minnpar.com/

 

[POND DIGGER]

I remembered another you will all laugh! Driving down a country road about two miles to the local gas station for another fill up of Diesel when I notice a group of deer in the neighbors field. I am in 4th gear humming along when the deer decide to run my way all of them. Still running about 25mph 4th gear when the deer get within 50ft of me I decide to slow and let them cross the road, (bad idea) 3 of the deer jumped over the loader arms, 1 ran into the right side tire stumbled then continued on. By now I thinking that was really dum. What made it worse was the fact the DNR was behind me and wrote me a ticket for blocking the road. I was not happy!!

 

[RocksnRoses]

I do not own or operate a backhoe, but a few years ago a mate and I were doing a cleanup job on an island, we had our wheel loaders there, he had his backhoe. We had finished the job and we were taking his truck and backhoe back down quite a steep little track to the barge, him in front, driving his truck, me behind, driving his backhoe, quite an old Case which also had no brakes, no ROPS and no seat belt.

I was starting to head down the hill slowly, when I thought perhaps I'll go to a lower gear to hold it back, that was a fatal mistake, I'd left it a bit late, missed the gear and away it went. Ok, I thought, I will drop the loader bucket on the ground, put a bit of pressure on it and it will pull up. Instead the front wheels came off the gound, I now had no steering and away it went, skidding along on the bottom of the bucket. In the meantime, my mate, who is halfway down the hill in the truck, hears the racket behind him, stops and gets out the truck to see what is going on. Sheer luck saw me fly past the corner of the truck with inches to spare.

Now also running alongside this track, laying on top of the ground was a 3" steel water pipe, which had been used for pumping water from the wharf up to a storage tank and on the other side of the pipe was about a 6' drop. The bucket mounted this pipe and then slid down the pipe like a rocket sled on rails.

Fortunately all ended well, the bucket slid off the pipe into sand where it flattened out a bit and came to a halt. I got off that thing shaking, my mate came down just about doubled up with laughter and I said 'I will never get on that thing again'. We were only talking about it a couple of days ago and had a laugh, but the end result could have been very different.

RnR.

 

[Dickjr.]

I was pushing out a county road that had 24" of snow on it. These roads are real crooked . I was pushing along and missed a curve in a drift and fell about 5 foot to the left the tractor did not turn over but you probably could have pushed it over by hand. I tore the hell out of the black top pulling myself back up on the road. Scared the xxxx out of me for sure. This was in 97 , the state was paying 100$ an hour for a backhoe to move snow . Good money , no cab though.

 

[Steve Frazier]

I was digging a trench for a 4' driveway culvert on frozen ground when I hooked something and the stabilizer slid into the trench. The machine was teetering on one rear wheel and the stabilizer, everything else was up in the air and I just sat there waiting for the end. After sitting there for what seemed like an eternity and realizing I wasn't yet dead, I very gingerly swung the boom to the high side which brought the machine back on its tires. With the boom hung out far left I very carefully returned to the driving position and surprisingly had enough traction to drive out of my predicament. I don't scare easy, but it took nearly a half hour to catch my breath after that one.

 

[Brandt]

Yesterday!!!
Running my 530CK up onto my gooseneck and one ramp fell off. The machine fell 36" and rolled onto it's side. While it was happening it seemed like slow motion and I had plenty of time to get out of the seat and crawl toward the top (left side) of the machine. As my feet hit the ground/side window (1/4 second after the machine landed on it's ride side) I reached over and got the engine off.
Lots of fluids spilled out and I had a minor scratch on my elbow.
I used my Cat 955 H crawler and F-250 to lift and pull it upright. It appears that the support for the cab is broken and some paint scratched is the only damage. I topped off all the fluids, hosed it down and on the second attempt it started right up.
I thank God that my "melon" wasn't squashed and would like to give my guarding angel a raise!!
I am now in the design process for making a beavertail for the trailer. I hope to change the pitch of the 5' ramps and make it a 9' incline. This should make loading less terrifying.

 

[Brandt]

Not a Back Hoe story but...
While loading my Cat 955 track loader onto my drop deck I needed a team of guarding angels.
I parked the drop deck going up a steep dirt driveway so it would decrease the loading angle. As I backed the crawler up onto the beavertail the whole world started to move! Not really, but as soon as I left the dirt the truck/trailer started to slide down the driveway. I applied the brakes on the machine but it did nothing beacuse I was riding on the beavertail. In front of the truck was a dirt road then a 15'-20' drop off. All I could think of was that I was going to lose my Western Star, trailer and crawler in one swoop. After riding the unit 20' or so my truck wheels turned and jacked the truck. This caused enough drag on the unit to stop the ride. I quickly drove the crawler off and ran down to the truck. A pick up was waiting as it had seen the truck coming down the driveway w/o a driver. He looked at me as if "Wow, that was close" and I looked at him as if "Wow, that was close"!
If it hadn't been for my guarding angel turning the truck wheels, I would have rode the unit into ablivion.

The moral of both of my stories: Stay prayed up!
From my experience; loading is the most dangerous part of the job.

 

[Bob Horrell]

I was once digging a utility trench for a new steel building during a very rainy winter. I was going along the back of the building where the ground had a moderate slope away from the building. I was about 7 or 8 feet from the building. Further away than that and the slope became rather steep until it ended up being about a 2to1. I was about half way along behind this 100 ft long building when the ground became very saturated and started to give. I could not move forward or backward without the backhoe wanting to tip over. The lower stabilizer just sank in the wet dirt and was no help. I couldn't swing the boom very far uphill for ballast because the building was in the way. If I tried to move the boom downhill to push myself up, the backhoe would start to tip before I could get it far enough to do any good. Everything I tried seemed to make things worse (like putting planks under the downhill tires etc.). So I am standing there looking at my backhoe trying to figure out what to do besides leave it there until things dried out, when I got an idea. I let all the air I could out of the uphill tires without losing the bead. I got in and was surprised at what a difference it made. I ended up finishing the trench.
I walked all along the back of the building with the owner before I started the job and the ground felt fine. It wasn't until the heavy equipment got on it that it revealed how saturated it was underneath. The backhoe sure looked funny on flat ground before I got the tires aired back up.

 

[ijoker]

I had a similar mishap with a trailer and a trak loader i had purchased. Hired a local contractor to haul it for me. The driver backed the trailer in off the pavement onto a slope down to a dirt road where i was going to drive it another 5 miles to my place. I started up the loader and held the brakes while the driver released the front binder and chain. Soon as he did, the loader started rolling backwards. Not real fast, but still rolling. The loader was rolling down the trailer at an angle, and i thought oh no, i am going to run right off the ramps. I was using all the strength in my legs on the brakes,trying to stop it, to no avail. Me, and the loader, ended up upright and stopped on the dirt road. And my wife and the driver could not believe it. The moral of the story is, know your machine, especially the brakes, before you decide to unload or load a machine on a trailer, on a hill. I learned my lesson. The hard way.

 

[Leon Phelps]

novice operator that I was, I figured I would drag the bucket down a tree trunk to get rid of poison ivy. I had poison ivy bad one time that year, so losing a couple weeks to it again was not an option.

I was on the side of a driveway that had a steep slope. You guessed it, I flipped it over on its side. I went flying about 20 feet and the hoe kept it from rolling on me. Scary when you think of it. Cost me $200 in fluids and $150 to get it flipped over.

 

[4500GUY]

I had a similar experience with a hill. I was traveling parallel to the base of the hill and I wanted to go a bit higher up the slope. As soon as I got the backhoe just slightly up on the grade, the worst feeling came over me and I thought the machine was going to flip. I gave her a quick steer to the left to head back to the base of the slope. Wheww, that could have turned out really bad! I learned my lesson very quickly from that experience.

 

[Burns-Tractor]

I my self have never ran a backhoe, I own a Case 530CK but it has a 3point instead of the hoe.
My grandfather was killed in a excavator, he was knocking holes into a bridge because it was unsafe and people kept moving the barricades and driving across it. He thought if he knocked holes into it then nobody can use it, so he started punching holes into it when the whole bridge collapse, the bridge grabbed the excavator arm and pulled it in.

Here is another story, My mom ran a scraper at a rock quarry when she was a teenager, she always said the machines were so junk, nothing had brakes and they never liked to run real well.
There was some guy there that ran the quarry truck, he went to stop and the brakes went out, he then went to open the door and the door handle broke and it wouldn't open. He was heading down a hill toward the pit which was at least a 100ft drop, the guy was able to jump out the window and jump off the side of the truck and then the truck went off into the pit.
I'm glad no was hurt,

My scariest moment was on a Revered Allis Chalmers WD45 with loader (loader lifts 12') I was loading a Minneapolis Moline UB onto a 16' trailer, the tractor had 6 wheel weights on the back so that was a extra 600lbs to lift. I was trying to lift it up on to the trailer when it slipped sideways and that made my Allis I was on tip sideways, I just knew I was going to lay it on it's side, luckily the tractor I was loading stopped sliding and the Allis I was on was on 2 wheels, I was able to lower the loader and get out of my predicament.
I was glad no one was injured.

 

[JS580SL]

Every morning first look of my reflection in the rear view mirror is a pretty scary moment.......

Couple months ago caught an unmarked ground cable the arched off the bucket in a hole with a leaking gas main, made a pretty good split second flame that made 4 grown men run like little kids.........

 

[MTI Mark]

Once upon a time, I had an Allmand compact loader-backhoe. I loaded it on a short trailer without too much trouble, and only had to go 4 miles. All was good until I hit about 40 mph, when the trailer started swaying and throwing the rearend of the pickup all over. Fortunately I was able to get it stopped before getting thrown into the ditch or worse, the opposing lane. Turns out I should have backed it on and put more weight on the toungue than I did. I slowly continued to my destination and unloaded, but with soiled undies, I am not the type of guy that likes carnival rides.