Even when you think you have all of your I's dotted and your T's crossed, your day can take a turn like you never imagined.  LHCP had a 5,000 pound donation arriving in July and everything was planned for its arrival.  Below you will find pictures of what happened when a lift gate did not operate correctly. 

The shipping company sent a smaller freight truck with a lift gate, yeah!!  This meant that the truck could get into the drive and drop the shipment with a pallet jack.  This shipment was 8 pallets of 43 to 62 pound boxes, not an easy task to deliver when every thing runs smoothly.  The first time the lift gate went down, I could tell it was low on fluid.  Sure enough, the gate would not go back up.  The driver tried to put his pallet jack under the lift gate to raise it, but it did not work.  Then he decided to drive down the sloping drive and see if level ground would help.  That did not work either and since he had left the pallet jack under the lift gate to protect it, the back wheels were off the ground. 

At this point, he had no brakes, and we only had two 30-40 pound rocks that we use as a border to hold the truck in the drive.  We put out our emergency signs so that people would not drive in front of the truck, as it was being held on a slope by only two little rocks.  Well, the saying curiosity kill the cat could be true about people also.  We actually had one car stop in front of this truck that was on a hill with no back wheels on the ground and ask what was going on. 

The drive was now blocked, so we brought in a small pick up truck from the side yard, backed into the freight truck and unloaded it manually.  The truck driver called for a tow truck.  There we were with men inside this precariously perched, sloping truck trying to unload.  It was unnerving and scary, but then the tow truck driver arrived and lightened the mood.  As we sat and watched him survey the problem, the only thing he could say was, "this is a first." 

The lift gate had become stuck to the underside of the truck frame, so the truck would have to be lifted off the lift gate!!  I had never seen this done, so as all of sat and watched  the crane come in and lift the truck, I have to say I was in awe.  They brought in the crane, ducking power lines, and then had to make sure they didn’t raise the truck into those power lines and create a whole new problem.  They hoisted the truck up and the lift gate came free!  

This shipment arrived about 5:00pm and pulled out of the drive around 9:45pm.  Despite the difficulties, and all the work in the July heat, we jumped right into unpacking this donation.  As you can see in the pictures below, part of this shipment went right back out…without a lift gate.