Gizmokid2005
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- Dec 1, 2019
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- 2019 Ford Ranger XLT 4X4 SCrew
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- #1
I've been meaning to post this for a while, so here goes. Story time, buckle up! (I'll put a little tl;dr at the end)
3 weeks ago I made a trip from LA up to San Luis Obispo to meet with a friend and do some long-overdue offroading now that GLaDOS is part of the family. We were going to spend the day on Saturday hitting local trails and generally just enjoying the day. It had rained leading up to it and was supposed to rain on and off during the day, but generally, being from Michigan we were unconcerned with some rain and headed out for the day. As a bit of setup, I should note that this buddy has a 2013 Jeep Wrangler, lifted, mud tires, winch, very off-road ready and capable.
We'd found some pretty good trails, nothing too treacherous, handled mostly in 2wd without any real issues. On the last trail we were on, the rain had picked up pretty good for a while, but the trail was still easily passable, a few slicker spots, but nothing bad. Then it unexpected turned from a highway-vehicle trail to a dirt-bike only trail without warning, at a spot that was a slick corner with no place to turn around. Our thought was to make this slippery corner and turn around just down the hill and head back out and hit some other trails.
Well, in trying to turn around, the stock tires on GLaDOS were, uhh, a little less than up for the task. I started to slide to the point that continuing under my own power would lead to sliding off the road into the culvert and potentially rolling over. Buddy and I got out to survey the situation and determine what we could do to get my truck anchored and get going the proper way. Currently I was blocking the trail, going the other way had way to get through (back to the point of the trail transitioning to a smaller trail), so we had to come up with something with his Jeep in front of mine and the back of the Ranger needing the anchoring/help.
We got out to survey the situation and see what we could do, trying to find winching points or anchoring points. This is when the worst struck. I slipped in the mud, going down, and in the process completely shattering my ankle. Broke all three bones that hold the ankle in place (Trimalleolar fracture if you want to look up images), which immediately rendered me useless. I knew my ankle was completely screwed, couldn't put any weight on it, I couldn't move it, and it's my right ankle which means I couldn't drive either. I think my only saving grace was the hiking boots I had that prevented the ankle from completely dislocating or breaking the skin. We were in a location that had no cell phone service, and as I said before, no way to get back out of the trail. So now getting out of this situation was left up to the two of us, but at this point, just my buddy, since I couldn't do anything.
At the end of the day, he was able to find a wood post that was wedged into the culvert under the trail to run a snatchblock from, and run his winch line from his Jeep to under GLaDOS and back to the rear of the truck to get things going again. And the fun pics of the rigging:
And the middle-lower-left of that last photo, you can see the slide marks where I fell and this whole thing went south. With this setup, we were able to get GLaDOS back aligned correctly to get turned around. My buddy managed to get his Jeep turned around as well as the Ranger and hopped back and forth between them to get them out of the worst of the trail until we got to a more stable part of the trail where I could get my mangled foot out of the way enough to drive out with my left foot. It took about 2.5 hours from original break until we hit the ER. After a 50 minute drive from the trailhead through the backroads to get into San Luis Obispo to the hospital.
I had repair surgery on the 10th, so I'm only about 2.5 weeks into the 6-8+ week recovery and haven't been able to drive since. I'm aching to get back behind the wheel and back offroad. I'm lucky that in almost 33 years of all of my shenanigans and debauchery and being a monkey, offroading, biking, etc, this was the first time I've really ever injured anything.
TL;DR - Went offroading with a buddy, got stuck in some slick mud due to rain, fell and shattered my ankle trying to assess the situation, able to get my truck unstuck with a genius winch setup.
I'll post more pictures of the ankle in later posts. I have my second post-op follow-up on Tuesday.
3 weeks ago I made a trip from LA up to San Luis Obispo to meet with a friend and do some long-overdue offroading now that GLaDOS is part of the family. We were going to spend the day on Saturday hitting local trails and generally just enjoying the day. It had rained leading up to it and was supposed to rain on and off during the day, but generally, being from Michigan we were unconcerned with some rain and headed out for the day. As a bit of setup, I should note that this buddy has a 2013 Jeep Wrangler, lifted, mud tires, winch, very off-road ready and capable.
We'd found some pretty good trails, nothing too treacherous, handled mostly in 2wd without any real issues. On the last trail we were on, the rain had picked up pretty good for a while, but the trail was still easily passable, a few slicker spots, but nothing bad. Then it unexpected turned from a highway-vehicle trail to a dirt-bike only trail without warning, at a spot that was a slick corner with no place to turn around. Our thought was to make this slippery corner and turn around just down the hill and head back out and hit some other trails.
Well, in trying to turn around, the stock tires on GLaDOS were, uhh, a little less than up for the task. I started to slide to the point that continuing under my own power would lead to sliding off the road into the culvert and potentially rolling over. Buddy and I got out to survey the situation and determine what we could do to get my truck anchored and get going the proper way. Currently I was blocking the trail, going the other way had way to get through (back to the point of the trail transitioning to a smaller trail), so we had to come up with something with his Jeep in front of mine and the back of the Ranger needing the anchoring/help.
We got out to survey the situation and see what we could do, trying to find winching points or anchoring points. This is when the worst struck. I slipped in the mud, going down, and in the process completely shattering my ankle. Broke all three bones that hold the ankle in place (Trimalleolar fracture if you want to look up images), which immediately rendered me useless. I knew my ankle was completely screwed, couldn't put any weight on it, I couldn't move it, and it's my right ankle which means I couldn't drive either. I think my only saving grace was the hiking boots I had that prevented the ankle from completely dislocating or breaking the skin. We were in a location that had no cell phone service, and as I said before, no way to get back out of the trail. So now getting out of this situation was left up to the two of us, but at this point, just my buddy, since I couldn't do anything.
At the end of the day, he was able to find a wood post that was wedged into the culvert under the trail to run a snatchblock from, and run his winch line from his Jeep to under GLaDOS and back to the rear of the truck to get things going again. And the fun pics of the rigging:
And the middle-lower-left of that last photo, you can see the slide marks where I fell and this whole thing went south. With this setup, we were able to get GLaDOS back aligned correctly to get turned around. My buddy managed to get his Jeep turned around as well as the Ranger and hopped back and forth between them to get them out of the worst of the trail until we got to a more stable part of the trail where I could get my mangled foot out of the way enough to drive out with my left foot. It took about 2.5 hours from original break until we hit the ER. After a 50 minute drive from the trailhead through the backroads to get into San Luis Obispo to the hospital.
I had repair surgery on the 10th, so I'm only about 2.5 weeks into the 6-8+ week recovery and haven't been able to drive since. I'm aching to get back behind the wheel and back offroad. I'm lucky that in almost 33 years of all of my shenanigans and debauchery and being a monkey, offroading, biking, etc, this was the first time I've really ever injured anything.
TL;DR - Went offroading with a buddy, got stuck in some slick mud due to rain, fell and shattered my ankle trying to assess the situation, able to get my truck unstuck with a genius winch setup.
I'll post more pictures of the ankle in later posts. I have my second post-op follow-up on Tuesday.
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