Accident Prone

Max bought the property adjacent to the forest, and although none of us had met him, the whisper was that he was an accident prone sort of bugger. It was the afternoon of New Year’s Eve and the five of us that were on fire standby duty, had finished for the day. Alf, the boss, had been given a bottle of whiskey by one of the companies we supplied posts to and he decided to shout for us before we went off home. He gave us each a measured dose of one capful in a glass! Miserable sod. But before the whiskey had touched our lips the phone rang. It was Max’s wife asking for help because he had rolled his Landrover and was pinned under it!

I downed my thimbleful before we left and I suspect the others wouldn’t allow evaporation to take place either! Max had been driving across the slope, and there were three fenceposts loose on the flatdeck of his Landrover. A wheel must have slid onto a sheeptrack, causing the posts to roll to the downhill side of the deck, the impetus was enough to alter the centre of gravity on the vehicle causing it to flop on its side! The door swung open as the vehicle tipped, there was no strap to stop it from swinging fully open to the mudguard. Max must have tried to jump free but was too slow and his leg was pinned under the bottom door sill.

A bunch of local farmers turned up, one with a tractor, but Max’s wife red the riot act and wouldn’t allow us to do anything until the ambulance arrived. Meantime, Max was squawking like a stuck pig! The guy with the tractor wanted to hook onto the cab of the Landrover and pull it onto its feet, thus freeing him. Most of us thought it was a good idea, but Max wouldn’t have it! He was frightened of blood spurting from a burst artery when the pressure was off. He wanted to wait for the ambulance too. We reckoned there were enough of us there to man-handle the vehicle off him, but no, we waited with hands on hips while Max was doing his squawking.  

Terry the paramedic usually came to farm and forestry accidents out our way. He agreed with us that it was best to use the available manpower to stand the vehicle up. We thought that for a fraction of a second the door sill would put extra pressure on the leg, and sure enough, even though we were quick, at the appropriate time Max squawked! There was no cut, blood or any sign of a broken bone, but there was a dent where the door sill had rested on him. He was ok, he just hobbled around for a week or so.

A year later, after a couple too many beers, Max drove home, not too sure where to drive because he could see two centre lines. Nearly home, his judgement hadn’t improved as he approached the bridge. He slammed into the end of it and would have died but for the good work of a nurse who happened to live nearby. He wasn’t getting any air, so she shoved the casing of a biro pen into his throat to keep him going until the ambulance arrived. He breathed through one of those tracheotomy gadgets for a year or more, but fully recovered.

Our bulldozer driver was away on holiday, when someone wanted to borrow the trailing rock rippers. They were big, heavy and cumbersome, nearly as heavy as the D6 itself. The rippers were pulled behind like a trailer, raised and lowered by the winch. The only suitable area to load the rippers onto a transporter was at the forest headquarters, so I drove the dozer through two private properties, across the river and onto Max’s property. He was waiting for me! If there is something the landowners needed doing, while we passed through with the dozer, we would usually do it, and Max wanted me push some broom and gorse down into a gulley. I didn’t want to because of the rippers, but he doe-eyed me. We had no jacks or anyway of taking the rippers off, so I told him that I wouldn’t be doing any steep work. He nodded agreement and waved at me like an airport-man, into the gulley. Backing up the hill with that monster on behind was difficult enough without have to watch for Max who was forever getting in the way, running to and fro, and half the time on his arse. He coaxed me, pretending he knew all about dozer driving, into pushing just a little further. Never take notice of the accident prone! It was wet and I couldn’t back out! No traction!  The upshot was I had to hire another transporter and Charlie’s dozer to winch me out! We were talking big bucks! But when money was mentioned, Max ducked for cover.

Max moved out of the district and I heard nothing about for a decade or so. That is, until I read his death notice in the newspaper. The result of an accident, it read. I believed it! Inside the paper there was a small paragraph. He had been driving his four-wheel-drive down a steep, grassy track and a wheel had slipped over the edge, the vehicle rolled three times and he was thrown out. He was found dead at the scene!

Poor old accident prone Max!