It's a Team's Life

Jinxed Trailer

Many years ago we picked up a pre loaded spring ride trailer filled with lids for soda cans. A 53' trailer load of sleeves upon sleeves of these lids in Ohio going to Oregon. We felt every mile as we bounced across the county to our delivery.

We get to the customer and the back doors are opened and several sleeves of lids fall out onto the ground. This requires pictures and then more pictures of freight damage. Luckily for us a pre loaded sealed trailer so we were out of the freight damage picture. The lids were cleaned up and after several hours the trailer was empty and we were off to get the next load.

We loaded from front of trailer to the back with 55-gallon drums full of spontaneously flammable Zirconium chips and it was heavy. Our first stop was the nearest truck stop with a scale and that is where our next adventure started. We came back out to the truck after picking up the scale ticket to see some foamy liquid seeping out near the nose of the trailer. A call is then put into dispatch for them to decide the next move. After a bit of research the decision is made to call in a Hazmat first responder team.

Next thing we know the Hazmat Team is clearing the parking area of all trucks and having us drop the trailer in the corner of the lot. Huge white bails are set around the trailer, and everyone is in white protective suits carrying hoses that are hooked up to a trailer with some type of fire retardant. We are parked over to the side with a bird's eye view of all that is going on and our eyes are HUGE.

Now for the exciting moment as two people one on each door of the trailer open it... Nope nothing happens but anticipation is high. Pretty soon they relax a little bit and someone gets inside of the trailer and they discover what barrel has a pin-sized hole in it and of course it is near the front of the trailer. They start gathering up all of their stuff and the leader of the team comes back over to the truck. They want us to pick the trailer back up; they will follow us back to where we picked up the load. I am thinking wait a minute you were just in crazy space alien clothing and now we are to run back down the road with this bumpy trailer for about fifty miles back to where we started?

Well we get back under the trailer and we go back to the company so they can unload the barrels, then we go back outside so the hazmat team can wash down the trailer, and then back we go to load the load less one barrel. As we were waiting we learned a little more about what had happened. They believed that the leaking barrel has a small nail hole near the topside of the barrel and the sloshing was causing the protective foam to leak out. If we had continued on the foam would have leaked out exposing the core, which then would have burst into flames. The fire from what we were carrying could not be put out with water and would burn very hot. They figured from where the leak was in the barrel and how much we had lost this would have started burning as we were going through Portland. Sure glad we were paying attention. Once we were loaded off we went towards Salt Lake City after a very long afternoon. We had plans to stop at the truck stops in Troutdale, OR before continuing on but they were all full and we were soon to learn why.

As we start heading east the weather is deteriorating and it starts icing and our dread starts increasing. Yep there they were the dreaded signs "Chains Required Ahead" and so we continue on and there is the sign "Chains Required". Like dutiful citizens we immediately pulled over to the side of the road and we proceeded to get the brand new bags of chains out of the truck. I held the flashlight and read the bags on how to install chains while Bob did as instructed. All the while salt trucks keep going by and pelting us with salt. Well Bob got the chains on and off we go for another mile and we see a new sign "Install Chains Here". Jeez who knew there were pull off areas to install chains. Talk about learning the hard way.

We have the chains on for not to long before we saw the area to take the chains off which we promptly did and off we went in search of a place to spend the night. As we were going along with another truck following us a pickup decides to pass us at a high rate of speed and he spins out. With Bob driving and me having a heart attack thinking about this darn hazmat load and the truck behind us giving a play-by-play account of what he is watching through his windshield, Bob somehow stays calm.

The pickup is spinning and Bob is slowly moving over to the shoulder of the road, as I am watching the ditch getting closer and closer I am panicking, and all the while the guy on the CB is saying our company name is going to take a 4 wheeler, how many times the guy has spun, and all of the sudden the pickup stops with the front half of the pickup in what was our lane as 85' of his almost death goes rolling by inches from his front bumper. Bob moves back over into his lane and the guy on the CB was like a contestant that had just won a prize. He could not say enough about Bob's driving skills and how he had avoided an almost unavoidable accident. The guy in the pickup passed us again not to far down the road.

The next day we made it to Salt Lake City and we dropped that trailer off. Still when I see a trailer with the same name, as it was not a company trailer I get a little knot in my stomach. Thinking about this we once had a motorcycle that was jinxed and liked to hurt people but that is a different story