the rest of the story

If you haven’t read the first part of the story, you should read the post below before you continue.

 

And now, the rest of the story (sorry, couldn’t resist the Paul Harvey quote)

 

So needless to say, I’m pretty freaked out. I am gathering up the electronics that I have in the truck (digital camera, phone, etc.), while my wife gathers up the kid and wades/swims to dry land. The truck is at a precarious angle, with the passenger’s side high and the driver’s side much lower so I exit through passenger's side window.

 

At this point the water is just over the bottom of the windows on the driver side. I watch as it slowly fills that cabin, pulling the truck deeper into the hole. I also notice other things are happening. The horn begins to honk (somewhat muffled since it’s under water). The windshield wipers wave frantically, and the washer on the rear window sprays sporadically. I realize that the water is causing shorts in the electrical system, so I jump in to see what I can do. I struggle, but finally manage to get the hood open to get access to the battery. I practically need a scuba mask to see anything, but I manage to disconnect the battery using a toolkit I keep in the back of the truck.

 

As I get back up on the dry beach, I’m pretty upset with myself, thinking I just ruined a perfectly good truck. I can’t decide if I’m angry or depressed. My confusion lasts a short time. One of the owners of the trucks that I maneuvered around, came up to me and have the balls to say “Yeah I saw that deep hole when we moved down the beach (they had moved everything about 50’), and wondered how you were going to get back out”. I turn to the guy, and I must have had steam coming out of my ears, because he almost tripped he backed up so fast. I was speechless. I couldn’t believe after seeing the hole and knowing we would be coming back that way, he didn’t have the courtesy to walk 100’ to come and tell us. I had to just walk away. It took all my strength, but I managed not to throttle him. It was amazing how fast they packed up and took off.

 

So by this time there are between 75 – 100 spectators with their digital cameras and camera phones, recording the idiocy of one individual. Me. I tried not to take it personally; and by now I had relaxed a bit. I also tried to see the humor in it. I failed miserably, but I tried.

 

After a few minutes, one of the locals pulled up in his big F350 Super Duty (the people had left so the beach was open). He had seen my predicament and had run to his truck to try and help. He wasn’t the only one. Many of the people that had shown up were trying to lend a hand one way or another.(Why I love Utah). We used the F350 to try and pull the truck out of the hole. Didn’t work. Not only was the truck full of water and at a steep angle, but the transmission was in park and wouldn’t budge. (Couldn’t take it out of park either – needs a connection to the battery and the override was jammed)

 

I’ll cut to the chase. After an hour or so we are able to get a wrecker in there and maneuver the truck out of the deep hole. We opened the doors and it was like you see in the cartoons...only without the fish. There was water pouring out of every orifice. After it was sufficiently drained, we towed it to my bother in laws house, where we took apart everything electrical. We took apart the doors, pulled all of the fuses and blew the water from the openings and basically wet vacced the entire truck. Finally, I put the battery on a charger and basically just left it overnight to dry out. I figured it was dead and spent the night figuring out how we would get home.

 

The next morning I went back, a little more optimistic. I put everything back together, crossed my fingers and said a little prayer…actually it was a rather lengthy one. I turned the key and a wonderful sound filled my ears. I couldn’t believe it! It started right up!! I mean, it sounded like it did just 24 hours earlier. I did notice that my gas tank was showing beyond full so I quickly shut it down, understanding that apparenly water had gotten into my gas tank. I proceeded to drain and replace all of the fluids, flush the transmission, etc. After everything said and done, vital fluids replaced, I drove my Chevy home.

 

As we’re driving home my wife says to me, “You should get rid of that truck before it dies on you”. “Shame on you” I tell her. “If you can submerge your truck for an hour and drive it away, that’s a truck you KEEP! I have had the truck two years since then (it now has 95K miles), and have not had one problem with it. Believe me, I will not hesitate to buy Chevy again.

 

Now the kicker of the story, (one my wife loves to point out and which Pozer already commented on) was the shirt I was wearing at the time.

I’m sure more than a few people got a chuckle that day from the irony.