just my luck

well i went to badlands and didnt mess a thing up and im not home for a week and i did a good one. i was at work(Rite Aid pharmacy) and my cell rings and it was a friend that was wanting to go offroadin and i couldnt so he ask if he got stuck if i could come get him when i left work. so sure enugh i get a call at eight and he was stuck in a pond. so i leave work and get out there and yep he was in the first 15feet of a pond. so i try the first time with the chain attached to my rear bumper. no go so i turn around and try to back him out and that was working till the stupid chain went snap. it flew fast at my window and just beat it to heck. and he still was not out.

 

[IZwack]

At least it was the windshield and not a human body part

 

[Blee1099]

Reasons not to use chains for recovery. Should have used a tow strap with loops. There was a guy in MI that recently died from a tow strap with hooks..

6/18/2006, 11:10 a.m. ET
The Associated Press

HEATH TOWNSHIP, Mich. (AP) — A Holland man died after being struck in the head with a piece of metal that was attached to the end of a tow strap being used to pull a truck from the mud in Allegan County, officials said.

Jonathan Blystra, 33, was among a group of friends driving four-wheel drive trucks through a mud bog on Saturday when his truck became stuck, the Allegan County sheriff's department said in a statement.

The group tried to free Blystra's truck with a tow strap attached to another truck, but the strap broke, the department said. The piece of metal went thorough the windshield of Blystra's truck, striking him in the head.

 

[IZwack]

Or is that a reason not to go to mud-boggs

 

[Burns]

well that would have been the case if it would have hit with anymore force luckly i was hangin out the window. the reason i used the chain it because the remote on my winch is messing up and i could not use the winch. i had to take the electrical box apart and hot wire the winch. i free spooled the winch out, attched it to the truck, got him out no tug, then hot wired the winch electrical box to spool it back up.

 

[410Fortune]

Hang a blanket on the chain if you do have to use it, also use a chain that is WAY overkill.
Nobody but the two drivers should be anywhere near the "fly zone"
That sucker could have killed you, you were hanging out thew window and it hit the windshiled, imagine if it went left about 18"?

 

[CheapThrillEX]

that guy that died in MI was about 30 minutes or so from my house, chains=death and dismemberment & expensive damage,

my group of friends refuse to use chains or straps with metal hooks,
i don't think he was at an actually mud bog, they siad his friends were tryin to get him out, most bogs i have been to have designated tractors that do all the pullin, nobody at the ones i attend allow anybody else to do any recovery

 

[Burns]

well regardless it could have been my winch cable yeah i got lucky i know that. no one but me and a passanger were anywhere close to the chain. the driver was in the ranger and everyone else was far away. the mud bogs i have been to have a deciated tractor to pull

 

[Kadahaf]

there was a cop a while back that was killed from the cable of a flat bed tow truck that came apart. a belt wont hurt or do as much damage as flying metal will

 

[IZwack]

Hehe -- lets just never get stuck so that we'll never have to use chains

 

[SkanlaxJMO]

HEATH TOWNSHIP, Mich. (AP) — A Holland man died after being struck in the head with a piece of metal that was attached to the end of a tow strap being used to pull a truck from the mud in Allegan County, officials said.

Jonathan Blystra, 33, was among a group of friends driving four-wheel drive trucks through a mud bog on Saturday when his truck became stuck, the Allegan County sheriff's department said in a statement.

The group tried to free Blystra's truck with a tow strap attached to another truck, but the strap broke, the department said. The piece of metal went thorough the windshield of Blystra's truck, striking him in the head.

i used to live in holland....but yeah if you have to use a chain al least put a blanket over it......but your dam lucky it just got your winsheild...

 

[Burns]

yeah we used a air up matress after the window was broke lol and i would love it if no one got stuck then i would not have as many calls

 

[97BlackX5.0]

just a question.... wouldnt a chain.... properly rated of course be better than a strap.....heres my reasoning.... a strap stretches and stores energy and thats partly what helps you bungee the stuck vehicle out.... but a chain on the other hand will not stretch and generally just break and might move a few feet but not fly like a rubber band because it doesnt store engergy. Ive broken plenty of chains pulling tractors out and lifting heavy equipment and wouldnt dare use a strap on some of them.

 

[IZwack]

just a question.... wouldnt a chain.... properly rated of course be better than a strap.....heres my reasoning.... a strap stretches and stores energy and thats partly what helps you bungee the stuck vehicle out.... but a chain on the other hand will not stretch and generally just break and might move a few feet but not fly like a rubber band because it doesnt store engergy. Ive broken plenty of chains pulling tractors out and lifting heavy equipment and wouldnt dare use a strap on some of them.

I think the problem with chains is the chain itself carries more kinetic energy once it starts moving because of the greater mass (steel is more dense than nylon). A strap on the other hand has less mass and would have a harder time causing serious injuries. Mass is also another reason why people prefer the "loop" type of strap over the ones with the hook at the end. The hook part is a dangerous projectile once it gets moving.

Chains do store energy too, thats how the window in the picture above was broken. There was enough energy in that chain to cause that much destruction on the window. Where as if it was a nylon strap, the strap itself would probably have to be moving a good percentage of Mach speeds to cause that much damage. However you do bring up a good point about chain only traveling a few feet before it falls to the ground - I think the main reason for this is that steel would have more inertia (an object at rest resists motion) than nylon which soaks up a lot of the tension once the chain brakes in order to move one individual link. However, place enough tension in a chain before it brakes and this energy will move both halves of the chain at great speeds once the link brakes.

A strap also does not fly through the air very well - having large flat surface areas compared to its weight. I'm guessing this is one of the reasons why people put towels (or shirts or whatever) on top of the chains. In the unlikely even that the chain brakes, the towel will soak up most of the energy form the chain wrapped around it when the towel tries to move through the air with such a large surface area.

Another reason why a chain is more damaging is because, when it does run into say a window, the contact point is very very small at the initial impact. A chain link is typically round which means all of the kinetic energy of that one link is forced on that one tiny surface - causing tremendous pressure and causing the initial pressure point or crack. This pressure point/crack quickly spreads to a large area over tiny units of time as more and more links colide with the window and other chain links in front. In the image above, you can distinctly see at least two "centers" of impacts in the window (the whitest areas). These are probably where the inital two links came into contact with the window.

 

[CheapThrillEX]

chain breaking from just a straight pull versus a chain breaking from a jerking pull, ending results are quite different in the damage they cause

my buddy broke a chain when trying to jerk a vehicle and the chain was 25 ft in length and when it broke it flew over his tailgate and over the roof onto his hood landed the end, but on the way the center section went through his rear window shattering it (96 K1500)

 

[Burns]

it was a break from pressure i never jerk a chain because the above could happen so i guess i will be using a strap or put a weight bag on the winch im done with chains