Re: How to get a 400 and Haybine unstuck.

Posted by The Red Baron on June 16, 2004 at 20:00:09 from (207.46.238.138):

In Reply to: How to get a 400 and Haybine unstuck. posted by Kelly C on June 16, 2004 at 10:13:24:

A very well told tale! I have gotten stuck before but nothing along that scale.

The closest I can come to that story is the time I fired up my Oldsmobile on a cold morning to go to work. It was thundering away in high idle when I realized I had forgotten my lunch. The automatic transmissions gear selector indicating needle was sloppy at best and when I threw it back into what I thought was Park and was able to take my foot off the brake pedal I got out of the car to go back into the house to get my lunch. I had never had any trouble before by using the "counting of clicks" method of determining what gear I was in. Sadly this day it was not to be so. I was in a hurry and quickly got out to retrieve my lunch. I had not gotten far from the car when I heard the ominous sound of the car clicking into gear--a thing which still puzzles me somewhat to this day. In retrospect I think what happened was that in my hurry I had shifted all the way to First and then counted the clicks back to what must have been Neutral. It must have been just barely in the Neutral position--close enough to slide into Drive. At any rate I sustained a moment of shock, my face blanched and the car lurched forward shooting out of the driveway and began to rocket accross the road charting a course for the front of the neighbors house with me in heart pounding pursuit.

My dilemna was complicated by a number of facts comming together to my disadvantage--1) The car was in fast idle and moving at an incredible rate of speed made all the worse by the fact that I had to--2) Open the door on the run and keep it open without the benefit of a door spring which had long since ceased to be attached to the door as an aid in keeping it open--3) Hop along on one foot at a fantastic rate of speed while trying to get my right foot in the car and remotely aimed at the brake pedal since I had no possible chance of stooping down, keeping the door open, maintaining pace and reaching for the key or pulling back the gear selector back into Park--or worse yet into Reverse--given my present one legged sprint--4) It was a very frosty morning and the grass was frozen, threatening at every moment to cause me to upset my precarious and desperate one legged gait--and finally--5) The disturbing knowledge that the neighbors house was beginning to loom disturbingly close and that the moment of crisis was rapidly approacing. It had dawned on me that given my awkward position and the angle at which I was going to have to take one desperately frantic lunge at the brake pedal, I had about even chances that I would tromp down on the accelerator with disasterous results, since I was doing good simply to keep both pace and my balance, let alone accurately aim my foot with a do or die one stab at an awkward moving target that seemed suddenly smaller than I had ever realized.

I seized the top of the door with my left hand the top of the car with my right and and catapulted my body with a mightly swing that would have made an Olympic gymnast envious. This had the simultaneous effect of--(luckily) landing my foot on the brake--putting the car into a powerful slide which given my unsteady grasp shot me forward into the car slamming my head against the top of the door frame and then into the steering wheel while the rest of my body shot forward into what ever space momentum and its last trajectory now directed it. The car stopped around 15 feet short of the neighbors house, which by chance would have been his bedroom at the point of impact. There were now two long skid marks on his lawn and a pile of sod in front of my tires, a car still screaming at high idle and a badly shaken and bruised driver whose thoughts immediately turned to how to rapidly exit the scene and retrieve what little dignity I had left before I was seen and had to explain just what I was doing there at 5:30 in the morning tearing up his lawn. Fueled by adrenelin I overcame my pain and I didn't lose a second in throwing it into Reverse and punching the accelerator to the floor, retracing my course to the road and turning a gracefully sliding arc in Reverse with the front end of the Olds coming to rest on the road that would have done Jim Rockford of the "Rockford Files" credit. With the end to this debacle now in sight I threw it back into Forward and exited the scene with the pedal nearly to the floor.

Safely ensconced in my car, my breathing began to return to normal and I uttered a silent prayer of thanks that I had narrowly avoided catastrophe.

That neighbor had never waved or made eye contact with me as long as I lived there--both before and after the self willed car episode. So I was easily able to squelch any qualms over not coming forth with an explanation as to the two ruts that I left him with that morning. I never did volunteer any information. I did wonder with a wry smile just how he must have puzzled over the evidence left behind of my near tradgedy. Perhaps he surmised it was a ghost car.

Not caring for a repeat performance I made it a point to fix that gear shift indicator at an early opportunity. I had been very fortunate indeed. I seriously considered staying home that day to recover and would have done so had I not wanted even more to simply get out of there. It makes a good story now. I'm sure it would have been humorous beyond words and a priceless memory for someone to have witnessed the entire episode. I only wish I could have been that person.

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