[Gert505]

I have a couple of near death experiences. Cliff notes at bottom.

The first happened when I was working in a steel mill for the summer. It was my 1st day loading flatbed trucks on a forklift. I had to load skids with coils of steel on them.

Well this truck driver (we will call him Jim) that was in charge of loading all the trucks was telling me what coils to put where so the weight distribution was right. If you are not familiar with flat bed semi’s, they have two steel beams that run lengthwise of the bed for you to drive on when you load the trucks. The rest is just wood.

Well, as I drive onto the bed of the truck to load the first skid, the truck sinks real low and starts squeaking and making all kinds of fun sounds. These trucks do not have any walls to them and I can see the ground next to the truck about 8 - 10 feet down. I am only 18 and I look at Jim and he just laughs, knowing that it was my first time and was questioning these sounds.

Then I notice that Jim is throwing down little scrap plates of steel on the wood. I ask what this is for and he said that it’s to cover the weak spots on the bed of the truck. GREAT! But I thought that if I just stay on the two metal beams I will be fine. So I thought.

As I load the second skid, Jim tells me to put it next to the first one. This means that I have to go off of the two beams and on to the “reinforced” bed of the truck. The floor of the bed starts to squeak and makes some more pleasant sounds. I glance up at Jim and he says, “Its fine, it will hold you.” So I am pushing the skid into place and all of a sudden I hear a loud CRACK! My truck drops and the front wheel falls through the bed of the truck. Guess you missed that weak spot Jim. My life flashed before my eyes and I thought that I was going to fall out of the forklift onto the ground below and have the lift come crashing down on me. Luckily the forks were low to the ground and caught the lift so it didn’t tip over. I almost crapped my pants and I look up at Jim and his eyes were wide open and jaw dropped to the floor. He tried to play if off like it was normal, but I knew that he knew that I almost died. The worst part was that I had to load about 15 more skids onto that truck.

That was only the second worst day that I almost died. The worst was when I was in a building and a plane hit it. But that is too long of a story on top of this one. Plus I posted it already.

Cliff notes: I almost died when the forklift I was driving fell part way through the floor of the truck I was loading and I missed getting hit by a plane in a building by about 50 floors.