Never thought I'de be that guy.

[DADAKOTA]

4 hours ago, MOPanfisher said:

Many having worked some of the vehicle in the lake incidents the idea of a kid in a car seat in the cab of a launch vehicle give me the willies.

Saw this play out from a distance several years ago on Lake Jacomo.  We were out throwing stickbaits in mid March and were across the lake from the main boat ramp.  All of a sudden there was emergency vehicles everywhere police, fire, ambulance, and park rangers.  A guy had backed his trailer in to load his boat with his youngster strapped in his car seat.  As he was getting into his boat the vehicle and trailer rolled down the ramp into the lake.  Luckily for him someone parked nearby had access to the handle from a car jack.  They were able to smash through the window of the vehicle and get the boy out.  When we hit the ramp a wrecker was hooking onto the vehicle to pull it out.  All you could see was about 2 inches of the windshield/roof junction.  

[Blll]

40 years ago, still young & stupid, middle of nowhere in the U.P. of Michigan. Missed the gravel ramp, drove past the drop-off, and bottomed the car frame on the bottom with wheels still turning in open water. Walked about 4 miles to a farm. Salt of the earth fella drove his tractor down the logging road to pull me out. Broke his chain trying to pull me out. He pulled out a stouter chain and saved my bacon. Water in car past the seats but never hit dash or engine. I kept the broken end of the chain as a reminder to NOT BE STUPID again. At least your issue was mechanical and not just dumb. Looks like your engine was not submerged but you have some interior work ahead of you to fend-off mildew.        Good luck to you. 

[Coosa]

1 hour ago, Blll said:

40 years ago, still young & stupid, middle of nowhere in the U.P. of Michigan. Missed the gravel ramp, drove past the drop-off, and bottomed the car frame on the bottom with wheels still turning in open water. Walked about 4 miles to a farm. Salt of the earth fella drove his tractor down the logging road to pull me out. Broke his chain trying to pull me out. He pulled out a stouter chain and saved my bacon. Water in car past the seats but never hit dash or engine. I kept the broken end of the chain as a reminder to NOT BE STUPID again. At least your issue was mechanical and not just dumb. Looks like your engine was not submerged but you have some interior work ahead of you to fend-off mildew.        Good luck to you. 

Haha...trust me the engine was submerged. The truck completely dissappeared. What I didn't put in my post was that this actually happened about 7:00 pm. I called the sheriff department for insurance reasons and they showed up at 830. Our county conservation agent was on vacation so they called the one in the county next to me. Sheriffs dept or conservation didn't want to mess with it at night so it spent the night at the bottom of Ben Branch lake. It really surprised me with it being such a small lake that they left all that gas and oil in there overnight. I would say that truck is done. Insurance adjuster should be here tommorrow.

Fishinwrench I did have the parking on but apparently it didn't work well. The truck was still in park when we pulled it out but the shifter was stuck so I'm not sure what happened. 

Like everyone on here has mentioned, I'm just glad I was alone and didn't have my 4 yr old with me. I can tell you one thing, I don't know if I ever done it before but I sure won't be backing any boats in with people in the truck. It's one thing when you do something dumb but kinda scary when it's a mechanical issue you have no control over.

I would also like to add the truck sat on the ramp for probably five min b4 it broke loose

[MOPanfisher]

Curious, was it still running when it went in?  Reason I ask is a few years ago we had one of our work vehicles decide one night it needed a swim.  Wasn't running at the time, we assumed it was history.  The auto dealer we took it to drained the oil etc. No major parts replaced.  And basically no issues up to the time it went back to GSA a couple years later.  By contrast th very same vehicle in an attempt to cross a deeper than thought flooded ditch, sucked up water through the air intake and required major repairs.  

[Coosa]

1 hour ago, MOPanfisher said:

Curious, was it still running when it went in?  Reason I ask is a few years ago we had one of our work vehicles decide one night it needed a swim.  Wasn't running at the time, we assumed it was history.  The auto dealer we took it to drained the oil etc. No major parts replaced.  And basically no issues up to the time it went back to GSA a couple years later.  By contrast th very same vehicle in an attempt to cross a deeper than thought flooded ditch, sucked up water through the air intake and required major repairs.  

Truck was not running....I dont think. 

[Browntrout]

Man that sucks. How'd you and the dog end up getting home?

[fishinwrench]

With all the brilliant and amazing things that our vehicles do nowadays, it blows my mind that nobody has considered parking brakes that automatically engage when the truck is put into Park.  

And why not lock all 4 wheels instead of just the rear two ?  

These automotive engineers are sleeping on the job.  Give me automatic parking brakes and take back the stupid deal that locks the doors when you shift into drive.  If I wanna jump out of a moving vehicle I should bygod be free to do so!

[Coosa]

29 minutes ago, Browntrout said:

Man that sucks. How'd you and the dog end up getting home?

There was a lot of kids down there from the technical college here in town. One of them was nice enough to get me home. Had there not been anyone there it would have been quite a walk to the nearest house.

[MOBass]

OP, Glad you are ok.  Stuff can be repaired/replaced.  I have been off the water for a long while and getting ready to hit the lake in a couple of weeks.  This is a good reminder for me to take it slow and make sure I do everything right at the ramp and even then things can go sideways.

Somewhat off topic question for the community here....Am I the only one that rolls their windows down when launching or putting the boat back on the trailer?  I always figure if I make a really bad mistake or things go really wrong I can get out and not be wondering how to break the glass. 

[Coosa]

My widows were down although it wasnt on purpose. My sliding glass was even open. Only reason I even remeber that is jumped out of the boat to the back of the truck and tried to make a grab for my phone. It didnt take long b4 I was going under and had to abort mission.