Metal from the the right rear trailer
tire on the trailer in front of us spewed across the highway. As
luck would have it one piece of metal blew out our right rear tire,
and another piece probably triggered the emergency brakes on the
trailer. The combination of locked wheels on the Earth module and a
blown tire flipped the Earth module on it's side.
As Kadizzle tried to steer the truck he
had no idea the trailer was on it's side doing the steering.
Kadizzle tried to stay in front of the trailer, but it was hopeless.
The trailer steered the truck at about 65 miles an hour into the
median strip. Things were not good and the Kadizzles were mostly
along for the ride at this point. The last thing The Commander
recalled was going in the ditch. Kadizzle recalls coming up out of
the ditch headed into oncoming traffic. That was the last
recollection of the occupants until they found themselves upside
down.
The mechanism that attaches the truck
to the trailer is designed to transfer weight from the trailer to the
truck. However, it also can apply torque to the truck. The truck
could resist the torque from the trailer until it started to come out
of the ditch. At this point the slope of the ditch made it easy for
the trailer to overturn the truck. When the computer, who was a hero
in this mess, sensed the truck rolling over it set off the side
airbags. The computer showed it's genius by not setting off the
front air bags. They were not needed because of the rate of
deceleration. Airbags exploding in front of us was the last thing we
needed. The side air bags did their job, but they also did one thing
that did not occur to Kadizzle until later. The air bag explosion
stunned Kadizzle and The Commander. The air bags acted like the flash
bang grenades swat teams use to stun the bad guys. That is why
neither occupant remember the best part of the ride, rolling over and
spinning around. Although the truck and trailer were originally
headed north on I-25 the whole apparatus ended up facing south upside
down.
This is the point where the crew found
themselves hanging upside down in the cab of the pickup. Kadizzle
inquired if The Commander was ok, and the report was good. Kadizzle
let The Commander know he was OK. The prospect of getting out did
not immediately look good. Kadizzle was very concerned about the fuel
onboard the overturned vehicle. In the bed of the pickup there was a
seven gallon gas can Kadizzle had just filled. The motorcycle upside
down in the back held about three gallons of gas. The trailer had two
large propane tanks full of propane. If there was a fire, it would
be a good one when you added another twenty gallons of gasoline from
the truck itself. With this in mind Kadizzle shouted to The Commander
to “Get out, get out as fast as you can”. The Commander is a
small woman and quickly crawled out the broken window on her side.
Kadizzle looked at the small opening and wondered if his massive
belly was going to make it through the escape hatch. Fortunately we
were quickly outside and stunned that we were totally unhurt.
As cars stopped people assumed we were
trapped under the truck. Several people asked us if there were people
in there. They were surprised when we said we were. When Kadizzle
gained his senses he called 911 and asked the highway patrol to see
if they could find the truck that caused the incident. By the time
they checked the truck was not to be found. It took several hours to
clear the wreck and we had to come back to the junk yard the next day
to get our personal items. The moral of the story is wear your
seatbelts, and when you drive ask yourself “Is this a good speed to
have a wreck?” You will never wish you were going faster once you
try the roll over. Over all the judges gave us an eight. We got
four points for doing a 180 with the truck and trailer, and four
points for doing 180 degrees from North to South. Our form was good
and our final alignment with the highway was great. The only way we
could have scored hirer would have to done a complete 360. Few have
ever achieved this feat and walked away.
