Return to Readers Rigs Main Page
Seriously Stucks
Archives

Vehicle Recovery gone Wrong

This is one of those "what the hell were they thinking" incidents.  Although we don't know the exact details of this, it appears by the series of pictures that this was either an intentional act, or an idea gone wrong.  Possibly they thought they could drive across the ice and when the ice broke, then couldn't winch the Jeep back up.  Who knows.  But a picture is worth a thousand words.  If this is your Jeep or you know what happened here, we'd love to hear from you, so drop us an email and shed some light on this. 

Update: A little research and it seems these series of pictures were from China.  This is how the story goes ...

Apparently the Jeep Cherokee was stuck at the top of the hill in that first picture.  Someone made the decision to turn the Jeep so that it was facing the man-made lake and they intended to pull it backwards down the hill.  But apparently the Jeep was far enough forward that the winch could not pull it backwards as it began drifting forward.  So again, its stuck.  In a different way.

So now the owner decides, after stepping on the ice, that driving it across the ice seemed like that might be the way out of this situation.  Unfortunately, the ice breaks as the Jeep touches down on the ice.  Now what?  Further attempt to pull the Jeep up the hill again, even with three winches pulling fail.

So now the situation goes from bad to worse.  Unhooking the Jeep from the anchoring vehicles lets it smash into the ice doing serious damage to the front end.  The owner decide now to PULL it across the man-made lake, under water, through the 6 inch thick ice.

By nightfall, they get it pulled within a few meters of the shoreline.  Above, to the right is the vehicle pulling, to the left the submerged Cherokee.  Daybreak reveals the scope of the damage.  Now frozen in the lake with heaps sheet ice in the damaged vehicle, they have to call for help because they can not extract it from the lake.  Finally they get the heavy equipment to the scene.

Finally extracted, the damage is extensive.  Broken bullbar, smashed windows, water logged, beaten and buckled, the Jeep is a wreck.

Most experienced offroaders reading this would probably be thinking of several decisions they would not have made and probably 101 other ideas how to get the Jeep back to safety before doing serious damage to it.  Why these guys ended up dragging it though the ice BEFORE calling for help, we'll probably never know.  But it sure is fun to look at the pictures!

Return to Readers Rigs Main Page
Seriously Stucks
Archives