So he puts the instrument box on the tailgate and opens the latches and walks off. I-man dumps it in a parking lot. I sounded line Clark Griswold when his Christmas bonus came.
Waiting on an estimate to fi it
It was 1980 and I was a rookey rodman. I was out on Walker Field blue topping a parking lot(FAA Job). The crew chief started setting up the level. The dirt guy interrupted him. As I walked up, the chief said "Set that up over there." So I picked up the legs and the level fell off onto the hard pack. That day I learned to always check the nut before touching the legs.
I have never done it but I watched a guy dump a level in the early 80's because he got distracted before he tightened it down. Ever since then I always keep at least one finger on the instrument until it is secure.
It is good to learn from your mistakes but even better to learn from the mistakes of others.
James
I tell the new guy to hold the rod on the chiseled "+" in concrete next to the flag. (Flag placed in dirt about 0.8' away). I turn multiple sets of angles and get distance. Later determine the point is about 0.8' from where I thought it should be. Question rod man in the office and he said he held rod next to flag as told.
Running precise levels with new guy across cultivated fields in Iowa. I gave him a large oversized flat screwdriver to use for turning points. The kid was an engineering student from the university doing summer work. About 1.5 miles into levels I have a low shot and can see the rod on ground next to screwdriver. I tell him multiple times I am ready for the shot. He waves the rod while still on the ground. Find out he was sticking the screwdriver in the ground then placing rod next to it, but never on top of it. Start over...
Instrumentman places large Geodimeter instrument case on the ground in front of truck after setting up over the point. Truck is on line to turn angles to one point. Instrumentman gets in truck to move it out of the way and crushes instrument case.
Shooting topo with two rodmen and total station on hot day. Break time so one rodman leans the prism pole into the grill of the truck at sort of a 60° angle. The other guy has trouble with bowel movements that come without notice. He jumps in truck and puts in drive to head for nearest bathroom. Spears prism rod into grill and radiator.
Schoenstedt locator gets leaned up against the back of the surburban with back doors open. Instrumentman needs to get a shot through the truck so puts truck in reverse and cranks the wheel to swing around. New locator gets bent like a banana.
Crew member decides to park truck between a power pole and a guy wire. Forgets about guy wire and backs up and blows out the back window. Pole is wobbling, but doesn't come down.
Same crew member pulls into a field drive that has a culvert under it with concrete headwalls. About a 4' drop from top of headwall. He decides to pull ahead and off to the right a bit so as to not block field drive in case someone comes along. Later, still thinking he is centered in the field drive puts truck in reverse and drops rear end off the concrete headwall. (I was the passenger).
Instrumentman set up in middle of railroad tracks looking down the tracks. (Long before all the safety regulations were required). High rail pickup comes from opposite direction and coasts in after shutting off engine. Honks his horn about 10 feet away from instrumentman's back.
Those are just a few that come to mind.
It sounds like the crew chief deserves most the blame on that one. Even if he was distracted he shouldn't have let go of the setup without the level being screwed on.
That's like loosening the lid to a salt shaker and offering the salt to an unsuspecting diner.....
But of course, it's not typical for crew chiefs to take any responsibility when there's a rookie rodman nearby. 😉
Glad I'm not your insurance carrier!!!!:-O 😀 😉
Surveyor staking out large facility on Ms. Gulf Coast back in 1980s, is approached by several men with ties and plans in their hands, so the I-man and rodman take a short break.
During the conversation that ensued, rodman, who is surveyor's #1 son, decides to absent-mindedly lean on a 1x1" lath, like a stool.
The lath breaks about midway, rodman falls back on it and perforates his rectum and several turns of his large intestine.
Fortunately, the stakeout job was a large new wing of the regional hospital, else the rodman would have bled out.
He lived, barely, and went on to become an accomplished and well-known PLS. I commissioned him to plane table my parent's ranch, not only because we were friends and he was so good with a plane table and alidade, but because he is a gifted artist who included dioramas of parts of the land's history on the plane table sheets, which are to this day mounted, framed, and hung in my mother's home.
>
> Instrumentman places large Geodimeter instrument case on the ground in front of truck after setting up over the point. Truck is on line to turn angles to one point. Instrumentman gets in truck to move it out of the way and crushes instrument case.
>
My boss was in such a hurry he put instrument in case but not in truck. Drove over the Ziess Alta-4 in the case. No damage, great hard case!
Crew guy closed the van door and hand got caught in the far end. Could not reach the handle to open it. :'(
> Ever since then I always keep at least one finger on the instrument until it is secure.
>
I had heard stories of people dropping the gun and stuff before I ever saw one. So when it came for me to learn the thing, I made a point to have a full grip on it until the nut was tight or it was secure back in the case.
E
I suppose he picked up the nickname "Popsicle" after that? :-O
1977... 6:45am in the back parking lot
The Chief of Field Crews is POed that a crew blamed a bad grade on their auto level, saying it was was out of adjustment. Company Policy (according to Lanny) was to peg your level at least once a week.
He marches us all out back for his demo of a 3 minute check.
Takes the first shot, then spins around for the second.
Flings the tripod up on his shoulder, but in his haste he never screwed the level on...
the trajectory was low, arcing only about three feet over his head.
it was a Very Good day!
Luckily, the handle on my Nikon NPL-350 is designed so that you grab both the top and bottom halves of the case so it is impossible to drop the EDM on the ground if you are holding the handle.
> I suppose he picked up the nickname "Popsicle" after that? :-O
Actually, it's "Popsicle Man"...;-)
But, the last I heard, he lives in Jackson, so no fair! :clap:
> 1977... 6:45am in the back parking lot
>
> The Chief of Field Crews is POed that a crew blamed a bad grade on their auto level, saying it was was out of adjustment. Company Policy (according to Lanny) was to peg your level at least once a week.
>
> He marches us all out back for his demo of a 3 minute check.
> Takes the first shot, then spins around for the second.
> Flings the tripod up on his shoulder, but in his haste he never screwed the level on...
>
> the trajectory was low, arcing only about three feet over his head.
> it was a Very Good day!
You were right. Q.E.D.
Project Manager out with one of my crew chiefs to shoot in(GPS) some features on an airport hanger development. 10 acre site, lots of construction happening, lots of workers, including a safety manager whom we met with during entry to site. All the PPE required to be on site. My second week on the job with company. Adjacent to site is an excavation pit with about 4 dozers actively moving material.
Crew chief sat in passenger seat. I drove around site, he would jump in and out to collect features. Kept foot on brake, he jumps out, jumps in, we go to next feature. (You call it lazy, I call it efficient). Crew chief jumps out to tie in fire hydrant, after a bit, I notice him looking through the field book. I jump out to see if he needs something.
A minute later turn around, to my dismay, someone had the nerve to move the brand new survey truck without asking! Upon further review, nobody was in the driver seat. OH S&!@. Truck headed straight into the excavation pit, couldn't get to it in time. Eventually came to a stop at the bottom.
Still don't know how I was lucky enough that no one saw the whole incident. Issued a gag order to the crew chief. Truck had no visible damage. Could've been ugly.
Some good ones there Jerry, spearing the grill had me LOL!
Only a few in my memory bank, BUT here is one of the more recent ones, maybe 10 years ago or so. I was helping another surveyor with some GPS work, and he had an older Leica instrument out (T1600 IIRC) too. He had Kern tripods which I had never used and he set the instrument on top of the tripod. I needed to set the GPS up where he had his tripod and asked if it was OK if I moved it, sure he said. I picked the setup up and just started to move it (trying to hold the instrument/tripod more or less vertical) and plop the instrument hits the deck, we were in the mountains so it wasn't pavement and I think he told me there was no damage to the instrument. I apologized profusely! It turns out he hadn't latched the mechanism that Kern tripods used for fastening the instrument to the tripod and me not knowing how they worked just assumed he had latched his instrument to the tripod and didn't check it.
SHG
Survey work was slow back in 1990 so I got loaned out as an inspector to ODOT. Was working with a retired ODOT employee but was in charge. Loaned him my truck because he could not drive a stick and the other inspection vehicle was a 5 speed. Went to meet up with him in time to watch him try to hold onto the bumper and not let the truck roll into the Mad River. Unsuccessful. He'd backed into a gravel spot along side the road, got out of the truck to fill out some reports, left it in neutral and leaned on the hood. Not amused in the least I asked him if he needed a golf cart or a tri-cylce to drive because automatics didn't appear to be his friend either.
Brother was working as a rod man along some railroad tracks that I'd worked on the year before with another company. I knew they only used the tracks around harvest time and told his crew chief that. It was in the middle of summer so he thought they'd be safe. My brother came in and the crew chief wanted him to tell me they'd lost a back site. They'd set it up in the middle of the tracks and watched as a train ran it over. Crew chief didn't realize it was winter wheat harvest time and wouldn't listen when my brother tried to warn him.
My bone head move was setting up the level. Got out of the truck and got the level out the case and the phone rang (bag phone) so I told my rod man to finish setting the level up. Got done with my phone call, grabbed the tri-pod and watch the level slide off and hit the ground. Learned to also make sure the instrument was tight even if I'd set it up and then walked away from it. Always make sure it's tight.
Early on as a rodman, I decided that a good place for the rod (after removing the prism) was to lean it against the back of the truck. I started up a nearby hill with the prism to set it on a tripod at the top, and saw the instrument man moving the truck. It wasn't until I got back down the hill that I realized he'd backed up prior to turning out of the field we were in. I'm just lucky it wasn't the brand new rod. Lesson learned; if you're a rodman, keep track of the rod.
Not exactly a story of damaged equipment, but; we used to do fairly frequent static GPS sessions for control purposes, and would run that while doing our work with the conventional instrument. We hired a college student to babysit the GPS when it was in high risk areas. At the end of one long day, we came out of the woods and saw the student with his textbook over his eyes asleep, so we crept up, tore down the instrument and put it away, before retreating to the edge of the woods about 400 feet distant.
Then we called him on the radio to see how it was going. Poor guy probably had enough stress in his life before we did that.
