Pages

Tuesday, January 24, 2012

The first time I knew towing could possibly kill me.

I towed for a few years by the time I was towing for Levesque's towing. It was an OK place the owner Brian seemed like a stand up guy, mind you I said "seemed" anyway we would get so busy at night that they would have a rotation of at least 3 guys on every night and one heavy for truck tows. On this particular night it was police week in Swansea which meant any calls for a police man needing a car towed was ours and at 75 bucks just to hook it we all wanted a piece of that action. We would sit in the Swansea tow yard until about 10 pm when things always slowed down or one of the guys would camp out up there and dispatch would give them every police call because they were close and they never wanted to the cops waiting. So you either sat there all night or lost money. On this night we get a call for a tow and Stevie a kid we called noodles took it. He was bad at stealing calls from us so we let him have this one. An hour went by and he told us on the two way he needed help, this was before nextels and cell phones so two way CB was king to us. Me and Paul went out in the other two trucks and saw noodles at the end of a dirt road about a mile long all mud stuck up to his rockers. The car a daytona was behind him. This lady went down this road and don't ask how she got that far was stuck and now noodles was too. I backed in with my truck and hooked him to me we did an inch worm pull i would winch him to me and he would winch her to him and then i would free spool the winch and do it all over again. We got all the way to where i was out and he was almost out and had her in a weird angle so he wanted to pull from the passenger side of his truck. I get the snatch block out to tie the cable down and he says no i got it and puts the winch cable behind the old brackets on the back body for the dolly system for 4wd's. I say "no that wont hold" and just as I finish the sentence the bracket snaps off the body and the cable now acts like a huge slingshot trying to go straight and shoots the bracket at me hitting me in the chest and sending me about 15 feet into the woods. Everyone comes over to me laughing at first the serious when they see I'm grey and have a hole in my shirt with blood coming out of it. I ended up at the ER that night with a bruised heart, funnier part was the owners brother in law who towed there said i was a faker and the owner never looked at me the same....every time I tell this story people say wow did noodles get fired he was an idiot...actually no he never even got reprimanded i got the shit for being hurt wearing a heart monitor and having a bruised heart all the while trying to be safe. People wonder why Levesque's went out of business, i wonder how they stayed as long as they did. Brian had the ability to have a great family business there . His father owned it outright as it was at one time an old mobile station. In the end Brian sold out to road one and lost everything and had to quit and go work for AAA. Last I had heard he was down south somewhere and his two boys were in an institution with PTSD after fighting in Iraq . Feel bad for them not him tho.  Ever get fired from a job for having walking pneumonia from the job? I did ! But that is another story for another day wait until I get to Rosas garage , 5 of the people I worked with there are dead now and that would be putting it at a safe number.

1 comment:

  1. That guy Brian was a real f#@k head. I think that's when I knew I hated you towing ;)

    ReplyDelete