Early 1980 something. I was paid by the wrecker company that had numerous police tow contracts to attend a wrecker operation class conducted by local legend tow operator Gene Beedle. Old Gene was older than dirt at that time and by now I'm relatively certain he's RIP. Anyways, here we were in a junk yard with a wrecked car as our victim. Gene was going to show us not how to tow but how people were rescued from entrapment in "his day". This was the earliest of the eighties, the Hurst tool was something still very new and often a patient could expire while someone was still pulling the rope to start the stubborn two stroke engine on the power unit. Also long before wheel lift technology and even roll backs were new on the towing horizon.
So, Gene has this wrecked scow behind the latest innovation in towing, a hydraulic wrecker by Century. He's going to show us different methods of extrication using the wrecker. First up, pulling the steering column up off of a trapped patient. He removes the windshield using a tire iron around its circumference, and leaves the iron laying on the vehicle's hood. Now conducting his pull the vehicle nestles up to the back of the well staked wrecker and the cable begins to work, creaking and groaning as it pulls the old iron (remember old cars?) up off "the patient. SnAP goes something or another and that cable whips up then down and hits that tire iron well enough to send it on a one way boomerang ride right through the back window of that brand new Century wrecker's back winDOH! Epic fale #1.
Next up was how an operator would use the winch's extreme amount of power to pull a driver's bench seat back in the case of entrapment to/under the dash in a crushed vehicle. "Mean Gene the towing machine" runs the cable through a snatch block, under the vehicle, up the rear bumper, over the deck lid and in through the removed rear window (same tire iron, recovered it from the wrecker's seat) opening and attaches it to the under seat's ironwork. He adds some cribbage along the pinch points to avoid the sheet metal V'ing which would entrap the cable and begins his pull. The car once again nestles up to the wrecker's rear, finding home and the cable begins to groan, pop, and spin as it goes to work. Ka fooking BOOM goes that old bench seat off of the floor and damn near through the roof. Anyone injured in that seat would surely have expired as the seat buckled the roof of that junker from the inside up.
Recovery and rescue have come a long way since the days Gene Beedle did it. Back when funeral homes doubled as ambulances, right Skip? Thankfully the bugaboos in the Hurst tools have been worked out with hotter ignition, better oil mixing and fuel delivery and maybe even electric start and thankfully wreckers are rarely if ever needed for extrication.
Old Gene presented as truth that he had saved many lives with these methods but for the life of me I don't see how, it weren't pretty.
I will never forget wrecker school with Gene Beedle. R I P old friend. :hail:
So, Gene has this wrecked scow behind the latest innovation in towing, a hydraulic wrecker by Century. He's going to show us different methods of extrication using the wrecker. First up, pulling the steering column up off of a trapped patient. He removes the windshield using a tire iron around its circumference, and leaves the iron laying on the vehicle's hood. Now conducting his pull the vehicle nestles up to the back of the well staked wrecker and the cable begins to work, creaking and groaning as it pulls the old iron (remember old cars?) up off "the patient. SnAP goes something or another and that cable whips up then down and hits that tire iron well enough to send it on a one way boomerang ride right through the back window of that brand new Century wrecker's back winDOH! Epic fale #1.
Next up was how an operator would use the winch's extreme amount of power to pull a driver's bench seat back in the case of entrapment to/under the dash in a crushed vehicle. "Mean Gene the towing machine" runs the cable through a snatch block, under the vehicle, up the rear bumper, over the deck lid and in through the removed rear window (same tire iron, recovered it from the wrecker's seat) opening and attaches it to the under seat's ironwork. He adds some cribbage along the pinch points to avoid the sheet metal V'ing which would entrap the cable and begins his pull. The car once again nestles up to the wrecker's rear, finding home and the cable begins to groan, pop, and spin as it goes to work. Ka fooking BOOM goes that old bench seat off of the floor and damn near through the roof. Anyone injured in that seat would surely have expired as the seat buckled the roof of that junker from the inside up.
Recovery and rescue have come a long way since the days Gene Beedle did it. Back when funeral homes doubled as ambulances, right Skip? Thankfully the bugaboos in the Hurst tools have been worked out with hotter ignition, better oil mixing and fuel delivery and maybe even electric start and thankfully wreckers are rarely if ever needed for extrication.
Old Gene presented as truth that he had saved many lives with these methods but for the life of me I don't see how, it weren't pretty.
I will never forget wrecker school with Gene Beedle. R I P old friend. :hail:
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