Dropped a SUV off a jack. Got lucky

SDE · Aug 24, 2014

My hydraulic jack is too tall, so I lift the vehicles with a screw type scissors jack and then put the hyd. bottle jack under it and finish lifting it. When I lowered the vehicle on to the jack stand, it rolled back a little. I then put blocks behind the rear tires. I finished the job, raise the vehicle, pulled the jack stand out and then saw that hyd. jack was barely under the frame. I put the jack stand back under it and pulled the screw jack out from the side of the vehicle. As I started to lower it, the jack kicked out and the vehicle fell onto the jack stand.
Yes, I made a few mistakes. But that is why I posted this. To point out how quick and easy it is for us to get hurt.
Be careful out there
SDE

Alan K · Aug 24, 2014

Ive had some close calls as well. I agree, it is very easy for things to happen. A person has to almost think way ahead.

JD Seller · Aug 24, 2014

A bottle jack on a steel car frame is just asking to be killed. The top on most bottle jacks is smooth so there is nothing to hold the jack on another piece of steel. Very few places on todays cars are flat enough for a bottle jack to be used on.

You need a good hydraulic floor jack.

Dick2 · Aug 24, 2014

That's the main reason that I have a 3.5 ton floor jack with a large lift pad.

It plain costs too much for medical treatment, or funerals, as the case may be, to even try to use anything less.

PJH · Aug 24, 2014

When I was in the eighth grade, I rode my bike up into the preacher's yard to collect for the paper. He had his '61 Buick sedan raised up real high on one side so he could get his fat self under it. He crawled out to fish around in his pocket for the 40 cents that he owed me, and while he was out, that Buick came down in a cloud of dust. He had a stack of concrete blocks under the frame holding that car up, and they crumbled. That man clearly had the Lord on his side that day. Four years later, he was the preacher at our wedding.

tractorguy2 · Aug 24, 2014

floor jacks don't cost much and some even come with the stands. All wise use the stands with a hydraulic jack. never use concrete blocks to support anything you are underneath!

Brad Buchanan · Aug 24, 2014

My shop is in a remote location and I often work alone.

I NEVER get under a vehicle or machine unless it is supported by cribbing... 4x4 or 6x6 solid wood.

Just my 2 cents.

Brad

glennster · Aug 24, 2014

The big problem we find in the shop is lack of good jacking points under a vehicle. Back in the "old days" vehicles had strong and easy to locate lift points. Not so with today's vehicles.

Goose · Aug 24, 2014

When I was about 16, I had a car fall off of a jack onto me. I was pinned under it. My head was in front of the rear axle and the rest of me behind it with the axle across my neck. There was no weight on me, I just couldn't get out. I yelled, and my mother and sister came running. Believe it or not, they lifted the corner of the car enough so I could slide out.

That was some 60 years ago, and it was a lesson that stuck with me all of my life. You'll NEVER see me get under a vehicle without throwing a spare tire, tree stumps, or something under the frame so if it does come down, it can't come all the way.

In my racing days, it used to give me the willies seeing the chances some guys took crawling under race cars in the pits.

PJH · Aug 24, 2014

Years ago a local guy, retired from the railroad, had a shop off of the alley behind the business district in our little town. One day he and another guy raised the hind end of an old Rambler up, and both of them were under it installing a pair of new shocks, when it fell off of whatever they had it on and trapped them underneath. They were dreadfully uncomfortable, but able to breath and holler for help, and pretty soon they could see the feet and legs of an old woman pulling one of those wheeled shopping baskets down the alley behind her. They'd holler, and the feet would stop and turn in all directions, then start on down the alley. They hollered again, franticly, and she stopped and looked everywhere for the "voices", then moved on. Finally they got her to talk to them, and they convinced her that they were real, and not merely voices in her imagination, and she went in one of the stores and got them some help.

I think of this possibility often, and try to avoid the chances of getting trapped. My wife would come looking for me when I failed to come in for supper. It would be a long day.

Dropped a SUV off a jack. Got lucky

SDE

Well-known Member

Alan K

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JD Seller

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Dick2

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PJH

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tractorguy2

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Brad Buchanan

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glennster

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Goose

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PJH

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