So, I was in my shop last night, maybe 6:30, checking the moose jerky in the smoker and my phone rings..
Wife on phone " you should go and help, "daughter 3" just ran out of the house, her friend rolled a quad and they might need help"
I glance out the window to see a quad tail light peel up the dark driveway, around the corner and disappear into the night.
So, naturally I was confused "What? Who? Where?" Still trying to process what's happening.
I head toward my truck as wife explains " "friend" called my daughter, she rolled he quad by the cemetery, she is ok, but needs help. That's all we know.
I figured, ok, no worries, the quad probably just needs to be righted and checked for damage, no problem. (The cemetery is about 1km from my house). I did a drive by, and didn't see any quads, lights, or girls. I figured they must be on a piece of the trail in a treed area, wheeled the truck around and headed back to the cemetery access road. From in there, I could see quad lights down the trail, maybe 200 yards, no way to get the truck closer.
So, this little piece of the trail is cut on a side hill, uphill on the left side and drops off kinda sharply on the right side. As I'm walking down the trail to them, I notice that there only seems to be one bike on the trail, not good...
As I arrive on scene and glance over the bank I silently confirm to myself, this is not good. It gets worse as I assess what happened.
13yr old friend was riding towards town. Trail is bumpy and slippery. Friend is hugging right side of trail to avoid the worst bumps. Friend sees a blue bunge cord on trail. Friend is distracted by bunge , catches right edge of trail and over she goes. Quad rolls one revolution and comes to rest against a tree. Friend ends up in a pile on downhill side of quad. Im not sure how it went exactly, but friend distinctly remembers seeing the bottom side of the quad in the tumble down.
Friend keeps insisting that she is fine, no injuries.
I slid down the hill to the quad, I thought there was a slight chance that I could manhandle it away from the tree, fire it up and maybe weave my way the rest of the way down the hill, through the trees, and onto the road.
I was wrong.
It turns out an 800 Outlander, on a side hill, in the snow, pressed into a tree is super heavy, I couldn't budge it. I also couldn't start it, the battery only had enough juice to light up the electronics and would not start the engine ( more on this later )
So, here i was with two 13yo girls, in the dark, on a side hill and our "rescue" machine is half the size of the downed bike. So, I got a ride back up to my truck, daughter stayed with friend and I went home for another quad, some slings, shackles, snatch block, etc.
With 2 pull machines we managed to get the Outlander most of the way back up to the trail just as Friends "13yo boyfriend" shows up to help ( apparently she phoned him while waiting for me )
I re-rigged the machines a couple times, daughter and I finally manage to get that beast back on the trail ( boyfriend never left his quad, just watched myself and the girls get it done, lol)
We wrapped up our stuff, the Outlander was still a no go, I hooked up a tow strap and towed it back to my place. Even that wasn't easy with my little 420.
Ya, anyway, I pushed it into my shop, checked it for damages. All I could find was the switch for the winch was broken and jammed to the IN position. I believe that is what killed the battery, the winch was trying to run when the key was in the on position.
So, ya, that's how I spent last evening, all is well, nobody hurt and only minor damage, but even more importantly the jerky turned out great.
RD