Just kind of a friendly reminder to those working under their vehicles to adequately protect themselves from mishaps before it costs you. I know sometimes its just a quick lift on a jackstand to do some brakes or something, but we need to keep safety in mind first. I am posting this reminder due to a veeery close friend of mines story I just heard from him last night. He lives 3.5hrs from me these days, but its where I go to ride/stay at his house when I go. He was working on his truck, had it up on drive up ramps ramps (good kind you buy at a store and think are safe on their own) to do some trans work. Put parking brake on, and then proceeding to remove the trans linkage.
The problem...the truck is a somewhat newer avalanche but has 225k miles on it...and a parking brake that was never really used, at least in a long time. Somehow when taking the trans linkage off, the trans went into neutral or typical park was removed (since its just a tiny pin), and the truck, which the ramps were not even on uneven ground (typical garage floor), made its way backwards and down the ramps with him laying underneath it. The parking brake from sitting for so long not used obviously did nothing as there was no outside forces besides typical slope of concrete creating a little slope of the ramps causing the truck to roll all the way off the top flat portion of the ramps to the down slope. Being that his truck was so close to his garage door, it blew his garage door out.
He was lucky, he had a toolbox at the bottom of the one ramp which stopped the truck from rolling completely down to the ground. Avalanches are not THAT high. If it had come all the way down, him (on a garage roller you lay on) may of been hit by some portion of the underbody. He was laying underneath from the front, so the wheels themselves most likely not an issue.
Just telling you all this as a reminder, if you are working underneath vehicles, never assume its good enough. Do whatever you can to alleviate possible ways the vehicle could end up on top of you. For example, old un-used parking brakes are often useless, while you depress the pedal, the pads are seized and not moving. Take other precautions out there such as adequately blocking the tires from initiating any rolling. In his case, wheel chocks MAY have stopped the initial roll which eventually caused his truck to roll all the way down. Trusting jackstands alone is also foolish, while they may support the weight needed, they are also susceptible to kicking out if the vehicle began to roll...and typically with a jackstand you have wheels off that you are supporting, thus greatly reducing ground clearance in a drop...if there is any at all. Not saying there is no way some weird thing can happen, but just saying dont assume things cant happen. Its easy (and ive been there) to just throw it up real quick, and think, I am just gonna be doin this for a minute, it'll be fine. Use the available safety measures. With jackstands I personally still use the floor jack (for example) in conjunction with jackstands, with just enough pressure to have positive contact if a jackstand were to fail...and I also always use chocks on wheels that allow or find alternative ways to shore the vehicle, while limiting the amount of time I have to spend with any body part underneath a vehicle on jacks of any kind.
People are injured or killed all the time for lack of satefy awareness. In his case if he wasn't killed, he may of laid underneath the vehicle for hours before anyone knew, since he was alone. Need to live to ride, dont go out over stupidity or laziness!
