3 days ago
This is a longer story than we usually post on facebook. However it does show how easily a person can end up in a jackpot.
STORY TIME -
Crash
My one son Jason and I had been in Oklahoma for nearly a week; we had bought six horses and had just started out on our way home to Ontario. It was the middle of August and the temperatures down there had been unbelievable, it had been something like 50 days straight with temperatures well above 100 degrees during the day and the whole state was in a severe drought. We were hauling our horses in a big steel gooseneck trailer and we were worried that our truck could overheat due to the load and the high temperatures so we decided to start our return trip in the evening and drive through the night and hopefully get far enough north by morning that the weather would be a little cooler. Even through the night it was hot hot and us northern fellas just weren’t used to that kind of heat.
We got along fine until we crossed the state line into Missouri. All of a sudden there was a huge smash and we were spinning down the road in our truck. We were crashing into things (we later realized that these were the cement abutments along the median of the interstate), the windows of the truck were smashing out around us, everything was a complete blur, and all in all it was one wild ride. With the force of the spinning and the suction created from it and with pieces of our truck flying off Jason figured the doors were going to come off and with all the force we would get sucked out of the truck. He grabbed onto me to try to hold us together to keep this from happening but afterwards I didn’t even realize that he had been holding onto me. This was all taking place at very high speed and we spun down the road quite a ways and finally came to a stop right along the edge of the right hand side of the road just like how a person would intentionally pull over (another couple of feet farther though and the truck would have likely rolled over into the ditch).
After we were stopped I couldn’t get out of my door because the driver’s side of the truck had been caved in but Jason got his door worked open and we both got out on that side. We were shaken up pretty well and still didn’t know what had happened to us and our trailer was no longer attached to our truck. With it being so hot and dry this whole accident had raised a ton of dust and it was far worse than being in a heavy fog and we couldn’t see very well so it was making it that much harder again to figure out what had happened.
We could make out two long objects, one was definitely a tractor trailer, and my first thought was that two tractor trailers had gotten into an accident and we had gotten mixed up in the middle of it somehow. It turned out the second one was actually our trailer but it was on its side and when we looked at our trailer normally we weren’t used to looking at the bottom of it.
What had happened was that a husband and wife driving team had been heading north with their tractor trailer full of lettuce and they had hit us. They had been pushing hard trying to get to their destination before the heat started to wilt their lettuce. The lady had been driving and had their truck going wide open, she fell asleep, and plowed right into the back of us. When they smashed into us it tore our trailer off our truck and threw it into the ditch on its side, we went spinning down the road in our truck, and their outfit went between our truck and trailer and rolled three times out into a field before it came to a stop.
We headed towards the trailers and as the dust settled a bit we were then able to tell what we were actually looking at. We went to check on the people in the tractor trailer as there didn’t seem to be any activity over there. When we got to the cab there was the man sitting there naked as a Jaybird kind of confused and disoriented and in shock. He asked where his wife was and we could hear some noise coming from the truck so we said she was in the cab, then he asked where his clothes were and we had no idea where they were. He had been sleeping in the sleeper of the truck and didn’t have anything on because it was so hot. When the tractor trailer was rolling the roof of the sleeper was completely torn off of the truck and it’s a miracle that he wasn’t thrown out and crushed.
The wife was down on the floor on the passenger’s side of their truck and was pinned there. Luckily two medics happened to be coming down the road a few minutes after this all took place and a police cruiser was just a few minutes behind them. An ambulance and fire trucks were called and they all took over looking after these people. The jaws of life were brought out to cut through some of the truck to get the lady out but they managed to get her worked free without using them. At one point the truck started to turn back on and with diesel on the ground from the crash the emergency people almost had a heart attack because the whole thing could have burst into flames but one of the firefighters got into the truck and got it turned off before anything like that happened. They finally hauled the two people from the tractor trailer away in the ambulance. The man had cracked or broken ribs and his wife had a broken leg and a medic carried part of her scalp up to the ambulance to hopefully get sewn back on. The medics checked us out as well, we said we were ok but they warned us that we’d be hurting the following day and that we were still running on adrenaline.
When all of the emergency professionals took over looking after these people we then went to see about our horses. We didn’t know how badly they were hurt and we both figured that most of them would be dead and that any that weren’t would have to be put down. The state troopers wouldn’t let us open the trailer for fear that if any horses got out and got away from us they might run down the highway and cause more accidents. We didn’t want to get in there with flashlights because it was fairly calm inside the trailer and if we started shining light in it would likely get them excited and if they started moving around they would quite likely injure themselves even more. There wasn’t a thing that we could do and it sure gave us both a pretty sick and helpless feeling.
A rancher with a livestock trailer was called by one of the emergency personal and then someone else with a livestock trailer was called so the first outfit thought they weren’t supposed to come then the second outfit somehow got canceled so by the time a trailer arrived for the horses it was about three hours after the crash actually took place. One thing that I did have to smile about was that because the trailer was somewhat in the ditch and not on flat ground there was a space between the ground and the middle of the trailer. As I walked past the trailer I could hear a munching sound. I looked under the trailer and all I could see was the nose and feet of one of the horses stuck threw the bars of the trailer and it was eating grass out of the ditch so I knew at least one of them must be alright.
The trailer that finally arrived was backed up to ours and gates were run from their trailer to ours to form an alleyway to keep any horses from escaping. The door was opened and the horses were unloaded and reloaded onto this rancher’s trailer. Five of them walked off easily and onto the other outfit. The sixth horse was lying under a trailer gate that had been torn loose during the crash but when it was lifted off of her she calmly got up and walked out to join the other horses. We had the horses hauled to a vet; they had cuts and scratches but were generally in pretty good shape considering what they had been through. The vet gave them penicillin, a tetnus shot, and shots for shock. We reloaded the horses and the rancher took them to his ranch and put them in a paddock where they could move around and hopefully work out some of their stiffness and soreness. It was a relief for us to have them being cared for.
We then hitched a ride with a tow truck driver who had been at the crash to get to a motel. Even this was an undertaking because there had been a Brad Paisley concert in the town that we were taken to and all the motels were booked. We finally found a pretty scruffy and rundown joint where they had one room left and we checked in. We tried to phone Brenda to let her know what had happened but the phone in our room was broken. We could make a call and hear what the person on the other end was saying but they couldn’t hear us. So we phoned home and kept trying to tell our story but would just hear, “Hello, hello, is anyone there?’ on the other end. We finally figured out what was the matter and went across the street to a gas station and phoned home from a payphone.
We went back to the motel and tried to get some sleep but we were pretty wired. The next morning we found out just how right the medics were when they said about we were ‘going to be hurting tomorrow.’ Everything hurt but our hair, no matter what we did it hurt to do it. If we stood up it hurt, if we laid down it hurt, if we only thought about moving it still seemed to hurt. I had gotten a bump on my head somehow during the crash and Jason had sore wrists. He had been sleeping when the crash started and he figured he had gotten his arms out in front of him to protect himself and hurt his wrists hitting hard against the dashboard.
Brenda notified our insurance company about what had taken place and phoned the rest of our family to let them know about what had happened. Our oldest son Travis who at the time was working for an oil company in Colorado phoned us and said that he was coming to help and showed up bright and early the next morning. He had driven over so we had transportation again. We went to the yard where the tow truck had hauled our truck and trailer as well as the tractor trailer. When Travis saw what was left of our outfit he whistled and said, “You sure wouldn’t want to do that often.” We got our clothes and tools and everything else out of what was left of our outfits. Our truck and trailer were both complete write offs and the tractor trailer was too. We then went to check on our horses at the ranch where they had been hauled to and treated their scrapes and cuts again with some supplies that we had picked up from the local vets office on the way there. We had to treat them several more times in the next few days. With the extreme heat the wounds needed extra care or they would turn septic.
The insurance company covering the tractor trailer was liable for the damages but they were playing dumb and let on like they didn’t even know that there was a second vehicle involved in the accident (us). We knew this wasn’t so because the tow truck driver told us that their adjustor had asked him if we had been hurt in the crash. I’m sure the plan was to wait and let us sit there and we’d get more desperate to just get home and settle easily. We were annoyed at the way they were handling things and told the adjustor that for every day extra that they let us sit there it was going to cost his company another $1000 so that got them moving. I also threatened them with a lawsuit and said that we had been talking to a lawyer who specialized in big truck accidents and then threw out this lawyer’s name. This wasn’t exactly lying but it wasn’t exactly the truth either. When we were at the motel I had seen this lawyer advertising on tv and had written the phone number down. I had phoned and gotten his receptionist and then was put on hold to wait for him but after about several minutes of waiting I hung up. So technically I did phone him but hadn’t actually talked to him. Either way though this seemed to get their attention and we hammered out a settlement with them and started looking for a new truck and trailer.
Travis drove us around to dealerships to look at new outfits and he was a great help. We did have one thing happen that struck me pretty funny. We had just looked at several trucks and trailers and were pretty much settled on what we wanted to buy and the trailer was from a dealership in Missouri and the truck was from a lot in Oklahoma. Travis had been driving us up and down roads in every direction and I’m sure I’d have gotten lost ten times by that point if I’d have been the one behind the wheel. It was getting on into the evening and we were headed back to our motel (which was in Oklahoma) and I said about how much we appreciated his help and driving us around and how I’d never have been able to find my way into and out of all these places and how it was sure great to have someone there that knew where they were going. About half a second after I said this we passed a big sign that had written on it in large letters ‘WELCOME TO KANSAS.’ Everything went real quiet for a couple seconds and Jason and I both turned to look at Travis who had suddenly gone silent and seemed to be putting a little too much effort into looking at something else on the other side of the road. “Are we supposed to be in Kansas?” I asked, and then everyone started laughing. And no, we weren’t supposed to be in Kansas.
When we were looking at new trucks one of them was a jazzy new dually with all the options on it – including a moon roof. I laughed and told Jason that that’s the one we should have. I said I could drive and he could stick his head up through the moon roof and watch out for women drivers, after that lady running into us we sure didn’t want to tangle with another one.
We were getting things organized and told Travis that he should probably head back to work as we didn’t want to keep him from his job any longer and we didn’t know how long we were going to be there. After he left we rented a truck so we’d have transportation. When horses are leaving the US to go to Canada they have to have international health papers drawn up by a regular veterinarian but these papers also have to be verified and signed by a federal veterinarian and the regular vet and the federal vet have to be from the same state. Originally we were leaving Oklahoma on a Saturday and were going to stop in Michigan and have international papers drawn up and then verified by the Michigan federal vet. This way we would spend the weekend driving instead of waiting for the Oklahoma vet to open up on the Monday. We were sure getting homesick and the weekend was rolling around again and we figured if we headed north we’d likely end up stuck and waiting over the weekend in Michigan for the vets to open Monday so we had a Oklahoma vet do health papers on the horses while they were at the ranch and drove to Oklahoma City to have them verified so that we could drive straight home.
After we had the health papers verified and on our trip back to the town where we were staying we decided which truck and trailer we were going to buy for sure. By the time we got back to town from our trip the truck dealership was just closing down for the day. The salesman that I had talked to saw our rented truck and asked us if we had bought that truck and we said no, that it was just rented and told him which truck we wanted. He said there was no point in us renting a truck and he put a thirty day license on the new one and gave it to us and said to come back tomorrow and we’d do the paperwork then. There was nothing signed and no money given to them and I thought they were a pretty trusting bunch to let us drive away with a brand new truck.
We had also decided on our trailer and told the owner of the dealership which one we wanted but I said it would maybe be a couple days before the insurance cheque was through to pay for it. He said for us not to worry about it and to take it and send him a cheque when we got home. We couldn’t believe how trusting these people were. The trailer we had picked out was a 28 foot aluminum trailer and worth a lot of money and we would be taking it to another country. I said that we wouldn’t do that but we sure did appreciate the offer.
Our threat to the insurance company had worked and they drove the cheque up to us the following morning. We got the hookup for the trailer installed on our truck, hooked up the trailer, drove our new outfit out to the ranch where our horses were, squared up with the rancher, loaded our horses and headed north for home once again.
When we got to the Canadian border and they asked us if we had anything to declare we kind of flinched because everything that they could see was brand new- the new truck, the new trailer, and six horses. We had been dreading going through Customs with all this and thought we’d be there for at least half a day (if we were lucky). However these Customs officers were a nice group of young people and we told them what had happened to us and they were courteous and helpful and got us cleared in good time and we really did appreciate it.
All told we were away for about two weeks and it sure was a tremendous relief to be back home once again. We got our new horses settled in and then we caught up with what had happened while we were away and we filled everyone at home in on all the details of what all had happened with us. The horses healed up and came along really well. The following week it took me the whole week of phoning and running around to get our truck and trailer licensed. The week after that we were fairly well back to normal - about as normal as we ever get around here anyway. A couple weeks after that we took off for North Dakota and bought another group of horses. Let me tell you, it was a far better trip than the one I’ve just told you about was.
Something we couldn’t get over was how helpful and trusting the southerners that we dealt with were. We couldn’t have asked for better people to get along with, they were just great. ... See MoreSee Less
4 days ago
Some of the mares on a rainy day back in the fall.
STORY TIME -
Lost Horse Deal
After most people had stopped driving horses around town there was a man who still drove an old white horse hooked to a high buckboard type of wagon. This horse wasn’t really a driver, it was a heavier animal, more what you would call a wagon or express horse. He thought the world of that horse and you could tell at a glance that this was one exceptionally well cared for animal. The man and his wife had moved into town from their farm. Their family had grown up and moved away and looking after that old horse gave him a reason to get up in the morning. This horse was also a link to the life that he had known when he had lived in the country. He wasn’t about to leave it all behind and lead the rest of his life sitting in a rocking chair in town, to piddle in the day doing nothing wasn’t for him. Looking after his horse was something for him to do to help occupy his time. His wife however didn’t look at things the same way he did. She thought if you moved to town that you should be a townie and leave the country life behind and to move on to bigger and better things. She pushed him constantly to get rid of his horse until finally he gave in to her and called my grandfather, who was a horse dealer to come and buy this horse from him.
I went with Grandpa to see the horse. It was kind of funny in a way because he sure didn’t have to go see it. He knew exactly what the horse was along with every other horse for miles around. He also knew that this man really didn’t want to sell his horse.
When we arrived we were shown into a little barn behind the house to look this horse over. Grandpa commented on how good the horse looked and you could see the man swell up with pride. Grandpa then did a sales pitch in reverse. He said how the market for drivers or express horses wasn’t very good right then and when they were so low in price how he thought that the man would get better value out of his horse by keeping him and using him rather than selling. I wasn’t very old at the time but I knew what Grandpa was doing - Grandpa was giving him a legitimate reason to keep his old friend. The old fella who seemed subdued when we arrived started to perk up and come alive. He said, “I think you’re right Bob, I think maybe I will keep him.” You could tell that he was relieved and thrilled not to be selling his horse after all. I don’t think his wife would have been quite as thrilled as he was.
Grandpa had a smile on his face all the way home that day. I’m not sure if it was because he felt good about helping the man to keep his horse or because it would be funny when the fella told his wife that he wasn’t going to sell after all.
The old chap drove his horse for several more years and he didn’t seem to mind one little bit that he was behind the times. ... See MoreSee Less
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