Swing Wide at the Gas Pumps

Best RV Memory

My wife and I love to travel. A few years ago, we began looking at the different types of RV’s to try the RV experience. We realized that travel trailers suited us best. I grew up on a farm and had driven tractor trailers and other vehicles pulling trailers. We decided to try and buy a small used one so if we did not like it as much as we thought, we could sell and get most, if not all, our money back. We immediately fell in love with the whole RV camping experience. As our retirement is approaching, we knew we would want a larger trailer with a pull out to spend a lot of time in. We found the perfect 32’ trailer with a slide out. After a short week-end shake down trip, we were ready for a longer voyage to Florida for a week.

It was a beautiful Sunday morning in the middle of nowhere in Alabama that our incredible story happened. I had pulled into the Dodge City truck stop for gas. I took the outside pump and stopped about 4’ away from the pump. After getting gas, we were sitting in the front seat of our truck talking about where else to get a bite to eat and I took my foot off the brake pedal and began rolling. I had decided to turn between the pumps and the station to pull out. However, we were still talking and I was not noticing that I was rolling quite a bit. Suddenly our truck jerked to a stop and it sounded like a shot gun had gone off. I looked in my mirror just in time to see the front axle on our trailer ripped loose from the frame from hitting the concrete at the end of the pump island. I backed up at an angle a little to get away from the pump and got out to survey the damage. The axle was ripped away from the frame on my side and the front axle tire was knocked backward, which knocked the slide out motor off, ripped all the brake lines in half and the front trailer tire was resting against the back tire.

At this moment, I concluded our week vacation was over and we were in for several days of misery! I looked at the axle on the other side of the trailer and I loosened a bolt where the axle flange brace had pulled away from the trailer frame and I could see it could go back if the bolt were loosened. I went back to the badly damaged side and talked to the person who was working at the truck stop and had run out when she heard the noise. She was trying to call places for us, but was having no luck-again it was Sunday morning in the middle of nowhere.

While I was trying to figure out what to do, a man pulled up to the pump beside me. He could see I was having trouble and I told him about my dumb mistake and what occurred thereafter. He got a strap out of his truck and we used it to pull the axle forward as much as we could. We both got under the trailer and saw just how much the metal was mangled. When we stood up, he said you’ll never find any place that will be able to fix all that. Then he said “the only person who could was his brother”, who he called. His brother came straight there from church, got under the trailer, walked all around it and said he would go home, switch trucks, change clothes, get the materials and equipment he needed and be back.

He came back, used his air wrench to take the tire off and had me pull slowly around out of the way. He then took his blow torch and cut all the mangled metal off, used 2 jacks to get the axle back where it belonged, spot welded a new good heavy piece of steel in several places he had made to fit, re-bolted one bolt and put a new bolt into a new spot and fixed the brake lines. He cautioned me to check the tires when we stopped and said when we got back home, a repair place may have undo the welds if the axle wasn’t positioned right and there was excessive tire wear (which turns out he had it perfect). In 3 hours from the time the mishap happened, we were on the road again. The rest of our trip was great. But our fondest memory of that trip and I’m sure any trip from here on out is the memory of the 2 Brown brothers who turned a catastrophe into a miracle and saved our vacation. As we pulled away from them that day, the brother who had done most of the work yelled out to us, “remember, swing wide at the gas pumps”. We repeat that phrase about everyday and often tell the story to family and friends.

Submitted by Gary Judson of Mooresville, IN as a part of the RV Centennial Celebration “Share Your Favorite RV Memory” contest.

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