Nice recovery

TT: I’m going to assume that righting a trailer full of cows is different than, say, a load of toilet paper.

Martin: While the processes may differ to some degree, every recovery job, whether it’s straight winching or uprighting, follows the same set of rules. You have to look at where the accident is and how the trailer is laying. Is it flat, or is it past centre? The next step is to determine all the structural damage. Remember, we don’t have X-ray vision, so all the damage is going to be on the side, out of view. As a wrecker operator, all you have is your experience. Determining those factors doesn’t change whether it’s a gasoline tanker, a cattle trailer, or a van loaded with tissue paper.

TT: In a situation like the overturned load of cattle, you’re working under chaotic conditions, and there’s so many different parties involved. Describe the scene.

Martin: First, you need one guy in charge. He needs to stand up and see the whole picture but keep his composure. In this situation, you had the SPCA, meat inspectors, the media, police with loaded guns, the driver of the truck, and they all have their own agenda. You have to tune out all that yet work with them all as a team. With that job, the plan adjusted at least eight times as we went. But everybody adjusted with it. Everybody was amazing as far as teamwork was concerned.

TT: Do you feel heavy pressure to clear the scene?

Martin: On one hand you do want that trailer out of there as quick as possible. In a city like Toronto, if you close a highway for 10 minutes, you get 10 miles of back-up. You also got rubberneckers causing secondary accidents all over the place. On the other hand, you can’t go so fast that you split the trailer open. Can you imagine how bad it would look if we started uprighting that trailer and dead cows started falling out, with all the media cameras there? Or if we had live cows running all over the highway?

TT: So it’s slow and steady…

Martin: That’s right. You go in six-inch intervals. Six inches, stop, look, review, and discuss what’s going on. If there’s something wrong, you put it back down and start again, or come up with another plan.

TT: Take us through the lifting process in the cow-tipping incident.

Martin: That job had to be done very slowly. The trailer was on its side, and some of the cows that survived were standing upright inside. We didn’t want to knock them over as we righted the trailer because they could suffer further injury.

Also, a lot of trailers, but most livestock trailers, have a translucent roof. It’s riveted, and when you have any kind of twist on the vehicle, it will start to “unzip” at the edges.

Handling a trailer like this is like picking up a wet cardboard box with a lot of weight in it. You have to work your way under it and feel your way across the bottom. If you lift too much on one side, it can twist or warp and start the rivets popping.

That’s where the air cushions come in. You want to find a crack where you can work your starter cushion under the trailer. The starter cushion’s job is to get the vehicle high enough so you can fit in bigger cushions. You start at the back, because that’s where the trailer is strongest, and add more as you work your way across the trailer, inflating them individually bit by bit–like picking up a wet cardboard box.

TT: Can you lift the whole trailer just with air cushions?

Martin: Technically, you can, but it’s not recommended. Air cushions at the minimum are soft, and a good shock absorber. But fully inflated, they’re like a beach ball: If you’re sitting on one, as soon as someone starts bouncing you, you don’t know where you’re going to go. So you have to get the wreckers under the vehicle to lift it slowly off the cushions. The cushion’s job is to raise it to 45 degrees so you can pull the vehicle over easily.

TT: I’ve seen invoices for uprighting and towing a heavy truck that reach up over ten grand. What’s the ballpark figure for a job like the cow trailer incident?

Martin: It depends. For example, there’s almost always a diesel spill that has to get cleaned up. Sometimes the land has to be excavated around the truck. In rural areas, there’s the cost of paid-duty officers and escort vehicles. We have to recover all those costs on top of the vehicle recovery and towing charges. It’s not unusual for the final bill to be around $30,000 for such jobs, maybe higher.

TT: How do you choose your operators? These guys have to be skilled beyond driving a heavy vehicle and operating a hydraulic crane, do they not?

Martin: Absolutely. I have the best crew. As an operator, you have to be able to think and react on your feet. You have to have an understanding of different types of vehicles and the various types of chemicals you’re going to come in contact with. You need to know physics. You have to be both physically and emotionally strong. You’ll see some horrifying scenes and injuries sometimes. You need to be able to detach yourself from that in order to do the job properly.

TT: What about the driver of the vehicle on the ground? Is there anything a truck driver can do to make your job easier, or generally do they just get in the way?

Martin: The truck drivers are instrumental. They can take the guesswork out of deconstructing how the wreck happened. They can help us determine what kind of damage we’re up against. Second, they know their equipment and the load better than anyone. I’ll tell you, if at every job I had the driver and owner of the truck standing there with us,