A whole load of trouble

Bernie Russ’s plans to cart sand last Tuesday were put on temporary hold when landowner Lindsey Black called to say his loader was stuck in a precarious position.

Mr Russ headed out on Monday to the compaction sandpit he uses on Mr Black’s property near Redmond to find his 15 tonne loader had fallen 3m into a hole caused by subsidence on the edge of the pit after 109mm of rain fell overnight on Friday.

“Lindsey called up and asked if we were planning to cart any sand today (Monday) and I said no, but we were planning to move a bit tomorrow,” Mr Russ said.

“He said I think you might need to dig it out first.”

And that was exactly what Mr Russ had to do, bringing in an excavator on Tuesday to dig out the upper track side of the dozer before driving it from where it landed below its perch on the edge of the pit.

“We shouldn’t park it alongside there any more obviously,” Mr Russ laughed.

Miraculously, the only damage to the CAT 953 was a broken window.

“Luckily no sand went into the engine, so we should be good to go once we get it out,” he said.