Safety when getting unstuck

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JW IN VA

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A PM to a fellow member made me think of making this a general post.

How many have heard of placing a weight such as a floor mat,jacket or something at the midpoint of a recovery strap to force the energy to the ground should something break on either end.Especially with tow straps and recovery straps since they store a lot of energy which is released if something breaks.
I can't imagine what it would feel like to be slapped by one of those.If you even feel it and could tell about it.
 
Hey. That is interesting. Fenceman mentioned doing something similar when stretching wire. I was stretching wire with a comealong and a dog. Barb wire slipped out of the dog and the comealong recoiled. It hit the back of my hand and left thigh. I had a glove on. The back of my hand was absolutely black.
 
Also make sure you use a clevis and each end is secured to the vehicles good. I've broken a lot of chains when I've had to snatch something hard, but I haven't managed to break a strap yet.
 
Same goes for winch lines

A piece of carpet or floor mat is good, something that catches wind will slow it down a lot.. and think carefully about which direction things will fly if it does break.. stay out of that area!

LOTS of videos on Youtube about safe winching.. And if you look at the russians you can see how to do it all wrong!
 
One of my old bosses had a cut across his face from barbed wire snapping when he was a kid.

A guy I know had his thumb cut off when a roping rope popped. They were pulling tied cattle up in the trailer and he was pointing in the air telling the guy to go. The rope broke, came back, and cut his thumb smooth off.

We have snapped quite a few chains, cables, etc at work. Its never fun.

They have some good videos of the big anchor chains breaking and flying across the deck of those big boats. Pretty scary.
 
Years ago I was helping change a rear tire on an old International 1066 tractor and the jack we were using kept sinking in the sandy field. We tried a few blocks but couldn't get anywhere so we decided to use an old F700 winch truck with gin poles the rancher had at the barn to help pick up the tractor. Well I guess the old cable was rotten because as soon as we got a good enough pull to lift the tractor a little bit that cable broke with me standing right next to it. Luckily it went straight up and down and missed me. Scared me bad enough to were I still put a floor mat or jacket on the cable or strap if using one to get something unstuck. I don't worry too much about chains though. Tractor tire was over 20 yrs ago.
 
Cable is definitely the worst I've experienced about flying back at ya. The empty spaces in most chains dissipates a lot of the energy I suppose. I do worry about broken hooks flying tho.

Saw lots of winch lines break when I was in the oilfield, especially during rig up. I don't think a jacket or floor mat would do much to stop that kind of energy.
 
The reason cables are more dangerous is because they're far more stretchy than a chain.. It takes energy to stretch something, it gets released when it breaks. Cables also fray into sharp ends.. basically a whip with 1000 times the energy behind it.
 
I worked with a guy that had been on a job were they pulled allot of cables. I noticed that if he ever had to step across a cable or choker he always stepped on it instead of over it. When I ask why he said he saw a man get thrown 10-15' in the air by a cable that was laying on the ground and suddenly got tight. Imagine what would have happened if he would have been stepping over the cable instead of on it when it got tight.
 
Lucky":1daiqs3g said:
I worked with a guy that had been on a job were they pulled allot of cables. I noticed that if he ever had to step across a cable or choker he always stepped on it instead of over it. When I ask why he said he saw a man get thrown 10-15' in the air by a cable that was laying on the ground and suddenly got tight. Imagine what would have happened if he would have been stepping over the cable instead of on it when it got tight.
Go from a he to a she,in a blink....
 
I work in the wire rope industry. We make the winch lines, raising lines, chain slings, nylon slings. We also proof test slings and I can tell you the wire rope, chain slings are worse when breaking than a nylon sling/strap. Laying something over the center of the line can help some.
 

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