Member Since: 09 Jun 2007
Location: Cape Town
Posts: 340
OMG I nearly lost the D3!
I am still reeling from a serious situation that happened on sunday where I nearly lost my D3 down a gorge.
It was a beautiful sunny day and my brother (who drives a D2) and I decided to do the Two Oceans trail on the Klein Helderberg farm near Stellenbosch. Everything was going very well and the Disco's were performing brilliantly until I made a stupid mistake that nearly cost my life (and the D3). This story illustrates partly what not to do and hopefully may prevent others from making similar errors.
I was approaching an obstacle that consisted of a water crossing and then a steep ascent. I was on a right hand bend, the road was very wet and there was a cliff to my left partly concealed by large bushes. As I approached the obstacle I looked ahead, taking my eyes off the road I was on. I checked my rear view mirror to see where my brother was, and I was driving on the left hand side of the road to avoid the stream that was flowing to my right. In the small space of time that I processed those things and took my eyes off the road, I felt a slip to the left and lost traction at the front. I steered very gently right but instead of going straight ahead, the entire vehicle slid further to the left and leaned heavily toward the drop off. I stopped dead with the D3 hanging on the edge and ordered every body out of the vehicle immediately.
I got out and the horror of the near miss started dawning on me.
This was an incipient roll over and with the vehicle perched so precariously there was a strong sense of urgency to recover the vehicle immediately. This was error number two. The initial move was to attempt a recovery straight back and my brother and I attached a recovery strap between the vehicles and attached a further strap to his vehicle incase it was to be dragged over when the D3 went down. I got back into my car fearing for my life (error number 3). My brother gave gentle gas in the D2 but he was reversing uphill with his wheels in water and he spun with no traction. There I was, in a 2,7 ton vehicle on the edge of a steep drop off hanging by 25% of the width of my rear Grabber only. My foot was trembling on the brake as I gingerly climbed out, realising I had diced with death for the second time in 20 minutes.
This is when we started to think clearly at last. We then secured the D3 by both rims to a nearby tree, phoned the farm for help, sat down and thought again. The obvious thing to do was to dig a furrow for the right hand tyres to create a ridge for more traction and to prevent the vehicle sliding! Feverishly we dug behind and on the outside of the right rear. The spade broke, so we used an axe!. As we excavated under the tyre wheel came down! Whew. We dug more and she sank further into the furrow. She is going to live!!! The nausea started to subside. The thought of certain death faded. Doh! That was so close. Argh! How could I have been so stupid! How could we have not anchored the vehicle and dug first before attempting a recovery??!!
The farmer arrived shortly followed by a 4x4 guru known only as Willie but remembered as some sort of saint like hero to us. Willie took his Isuzu around the obstacle and put his nose toward the tree. Using a snatch block and his winch cable together with straps to my chassis, he was able to winch me up the slope and out of danger. With the tension of the winch and with the traction of the furrows I was able to drive out without drama.
I am forever indebted to Willie, the farmer at Klein Helderberg and to my brother Mike.
Lessons learned (almost the hard way):
1. STOP - THINK-PLAN. In the panic to recover the vehicle as soon as possible my brain forgot to plan appropriately. We should have first anchored the vehicle, then dug the furrows, and then she would have been safe. I should NEVER have got back into the car before this was done.
2. Things done correctly were not to give gas or steer hard right as she started to slide over the edge, not to give gas before the recovering vehicle gave an indication that it had traction, and calling for help when we knew we were out of our depth.
Here are the pics!
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Every body out!!
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This is so not good.....
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After the first recovery attempt we anchored the wheels.
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I get nauseous looking at this shot.
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You can see how little traction there is before we dug the trench.
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The wheel falls into the trench as we dig!!
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Here she is secure. This is Willie my hero, and the farmer and his son. You see the stream and the rock Willie says a number of others have avoided only to land up in a similar situation to me!!
The farmer said that he would probably never cut down that little tree that saved us.
8th Oct 2008 4:32 pm
SpiderBaby D3 Decade
Member Since: 21 Sep 2007
Location: Liverpool
Posts: 1411
Thank God you all got out safe.....I see no ships........
8th Oct 2008 4:46 pm
Andrew van den Heever
Member Since: 09 Jun 2007
Location: Cape Town
Posts: 340
I know SpiderBaby! I just shouted "Get out got out get out!!!" The kids were a bit confused. Dad's lost it. They are used to going up and down, so whats the fuss about a little sideways stuff?
Good to hear there was no serious ending but if I may be allowed to make one single observation from the pictures.......
Mistake number 1 was actually this:
Andrew van den Heever wrote:
I was driving on the left hand side of the road to avoid the stream that was flowing to my right.
You should drive in the puddles - that's the best bit of having a D3!!! The older I get, the more I realise that people confuse wrinkles for wisdom
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8th Oct 2008 5:12 pm
gilmore
Member Since: 16 Jan 2005
Location: On the sofa
Posts: 2185
Great posting. I'm not showing it to the missus though. She'll ban me from going offroad.
..Like when she saw that video of TFC rescueing some bloke on the Croisiere Blanche.
All opinions expressed in this posting are my own and are not necessarily those of someone who knows what they are talking about.
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8th Oct 2008 5:40 pm
MacLeod 313
Member Since: 18 Apr 2008
Location: away
Posts: 10723
Sorry to hear of your misfortune, and glad all is well for you, family and D3..........very good read, and very interesting pics.
Scary stuff.. glad you and yours got home safe.As you slide down the banister of life
may no splinters point your way
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Ray and I did a similar sideways trip in the Lakes (an hour or so apart) . We then spent all the following morning filling in all the ruts, scrapes, holes, puddles etc etc
Glad you got it sorted "To finish first, one first has to finish ...."
8th Oct 2008 8:18 pm
POINTYED
Member Since: 22 Mar 2008
Location: BURY,LANCS
Posts: 2758
HI
amazing story,compelling read
so glad you all got out safely
so glad you know your stuff
dunc life is tooooo short.enjoy the moment.dont worry be happy
Excellent post - its things like this that make me realise how little I really know about taking these vehicles off-road into dangerous situations.
Well done and good to see all is OKD3 05 SE (old one)
RRS 08 SE (new one)
formerly mxgeldar7
8th Oct 2008 9:00 pm
10forcash
Member Since: 09 Jun 2005
Location: Ubique
Posts: 16534
Side slopes..... the devils own work - always steer down 'em
8th Oct 2008 9:16 pm
caverD3
Member Since: 02 Jul 2006
Location: Oberon, NSW
Posts: 6922
I rolled the D2 because I didn't do that.
In this case ..............................not a good idea, the D3 doesn't fly that well. “There are only three sports: bullfighting, motor racing, and mountaineering; all the rest are merely gamesâ€
Ernest Hemmingway
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8th Oct 2008 10:32 pm
DG Site Moderator
Member Since: 12 Dec 2005
Location: The Gaff
Posts: 50978
Frightening stuff !!...I think I would have grown a new tooth
Looking at the angle of the vehicle ...what do peeps think was the chances of it tipping? Would I be out of order to suggest that it was some point away from this action ??
BTW I appreciate that I can't see the edge of the cliff in the pictures 21 year LR veteran > D2 GS 2003 > D3 S 2006 > D3 HSE 2009 > D4 HSE 2013 > D4 HSE 2015 > D5 HSE 2018 > DS HSE R-Dynamic P300e 2021
Great post. Glad to hear all is well! I have to remind myself often - personal safety first, bystander safety next, then vehicle recovery. It's hard to do with adrenaline going. You guys did great!!2006 D3 Tonga Green
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