In this incident, on May 18th, 2020, Team Pro-Tow responded to a dispatch for a truck and trailer that had gone off the roadway into the ditch on Witte Road. The trailer had a 30,000 lbs load, and together with the truck, the entire lift was over 60,000 lbs. The road was narrow, which made it challenging to complete this heavy truck tow.
Recovery Plan with a Rotating Crane Style Wrecker
We needed an HD rotating crane-style wreck and HD wrecker to get this truck recovery done. Unfortunately, drivers kept crossing our cones and into the safety zone. We needed traffic control to help out to get our equipment to work on the narrow roadway.
After creating a safe recovery plan, we needed to set things up to avoid overhead power lines and a low overpass while performing a 60-foot truck and trailer lift. It was a challenging heavy truck tow, but thankfully damage hadn’t caused an oil pan leak.
We decided to winch forward, setting the recovery truck in front of the casualty. We set up the rotating crane-style wrecker to perform a rear overhead light and reposition the truck and trailer on the road.
Working Hard to Minimize Damage
When lifting such a huge, cumbersome load, our team takes extra steps to minimize damage to the truck and trailer. In this case, we used soft recovery straps and secured the frame with shackles to keep it from breaking up. We also used strap protectors to prevent damage. We configured a wood frame around the left gate too. These extra safety precautions prevented the trailer from further damage.
Time to Lift
When our crane-style wrecker performed the overhead lift, it registered 28,000 pounds with the load leaning to the rear. As you could imagine, slow and steady work was the only way to prevent damage.
Our team carefully operated the rotator in harmony with the recovery truck parked in the front. We finally were able to get the truck and trailer back on the roadway and positioned for a heavy truck tow. We removed all the rigging and towed the casualty to a safe location.
Be sure to check out our other incident reports on our Recovery Blog!
If you require truck accident recovery, give Pro-tow 24-Hour Towing a call.
