Driver rescued after pushed downstream

[DoubleTop]

http://www.readingchronicle.co.uk/news/reading/articles/2010/03/27/45680-driver-nearly-swept-away-in-ford/

This one is getting a little notorious now, as we all know, it's not the depth that's the issue in fords, it's the speed of the flow that's the thing to watch out for.  I went to the ford last week in the Freelander to clean the underside and backed out, and that was before the rain!

DT.

[Chris Putt]

This is becoming all to common, once again last year the number of vehicle in water related incidents rose.

Its difficult to see how people dont know better, as a bloke once told me 'if the water is brown, your going to drown'- and looking at the velocity of the water on the surface is surely a fairly obvious indicator! #Also bear in mind current vector- water on the outside of a bend is moving significantly faster than that on the inside, it also moves faster where squeezed through a gap (often ford and bridges?)

In addition, whilst it is all fun and games to go wading, when the rivers are in spate is is usually near impossible to see the river bed composition and is more likely that there is going to be debris floating in the river, what you dont see is the suspended load and the bedload of the river ie, those objects carried sub surface, these tend to be heavier objects (washing machines, big rocks etc.) and are likely to cause damage or move a vehicle.

Without wishing to get too boring, I can tell you that a fire appliance will be moved when fully loaded in 2 1/2 foot of water moving at 3mph, a 'normal' car, will move in water at 3mph under a foot, so whilst its all well and good to have the best prepped vehicle in the world, it will be washed away by surprisingly shallow water, given a good flow.

I have seen some horrific reports on a number of car related incidents in the last few years and it is amazing how quickly a car becomes a death trap in water.

Please, please, please screw your heads on before going wading, especially in flood water- otherwise it will be the likes of myself and others who I work with or train who have to come and rescue/recover you.

Chris Putt
(Swiftwater and Flood rescue Technician)

[carbore]

im sure it woudld take someone with a bit of electronics knowledge about 20 mins to knock up a prototype ford-warning system,

Basically a trubine-type arrangemnt that senses the flow rate and then triggers a warning sign when the flow rate gets too fast. It may need to be slightly height dependant e.g. hig flow rate at over 1 foot deapth = trigger sign.

Would be easy to do with solar power sensor and batter to kick in to power the sign.

(no doubt that £100 quids worth of kit would cost abotu £50,000 buy the time the council procurement teams had got the contract right!)

[Saffy]

im sure it woudld take someone with a bit of electronics knowledge about 20 mins to knock up a prototype ford-warning system,

Basically a trubine-type arrangemnt that senses the flow rate and then triggers a warning sign when the flow rate gets too fast. It may need to be slightly height dependant e.g. hig flow rate at over 1 foot deapth = trigger sign.

Would be easy to do with solar power sensor and batter to kick in to power the sign.

(no doubt that £100 quids worth of kit would cost abotu £50,000 buy the time the council procurement teams had got the contract right!)

I prefer the idiot de-population effect of fast flowing fords  :)

[Disco Matt]

Interestingly the comments on the article are much the same as I'd expect here - "you twit" being the general line!   :lol:

I'm wondering if all 4x4s should come with driver training, considering the number of cases I've heard of where someone has evidently thought "I am invincible" shortly before finding that a CR-V may have 4x4 but tends to float...

As for anyone taking a conventional 4x2 vehicle into water, you'd have to be completely mad to even think about the stuff some of these idiots barrel into "because the satnav told me to"!

[william127]

we had to tow a brand new merc up a tiny lane in the snow after it had been stopped driving through standon ford, which is about 3 foot deep and fifty foot long, and going against the current!

[muddyjames]

I know the reading area fords and cant remember where this one is and nor can I find it on the wetroads web site or on google maps. hmmm. I dont want to do a bee line straight to it, I am just wondering which one it is!

[Range Rover Blues]

If they had as many holes in the floor as I do they'd think twice about any deep wading.  In  LR the problem increases significantly as soon as the bodywork is into the water, it doesn't have to go in far to experience drag on the underside of the body.

Added to which I doub you can get a decent bow-wave in fast flowing water.

I don't like wading because I don't like changing bearings.

[DoubleTop]

I know the reading area fords and cant remember where this one is and nor can I find it on the wetroads web site or on google maps. hmmm. I dont want to do a bee line straight to it, I am just wondering which one it is!

quite interestingly, the google streetview car went throgh the ford :D
http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?hl=en&ie=UTF8&ll=51.466893,-0.875228&spn=0,359.998263&t=h&z=20&layer=c&cbll=51.466889,-0.87506&panoid=rJJfofI4_X5i4R2YyuAcWg&cbp=12,92.97,,0,18.97

DT.

[J.D.]

I know this fprd well, having recovered upwards of 40 to 50 vehicles from it in the last 3 years or so. Most are fortunate and end up just conking out, althiugh I have had one off the railway arches over half a mile downstream, totally submerged. I work for the Environment Agency, and also work as a water recovery technician, so I am there quite a few times a month. I actually have one to recover shortly which is a few hundred yards downstream and has been there for a matter of a few months.

I have been through it when it is a 3ft and that is the maximum I will go through it at. There was a woman rescued (while I was in attendance), from a vauxhall Astra estate and the ford was 4ft deep at that time.

[squaddie_fox]

i have been through flood water at around 3 foot in my old fiesta (05 plate,  :-$ ) though it hardly had a flow to it and didn't have the standard filter connected in the normal way as i used to have to go through a few fords. the porsche cayenne driver that was stuck in the middle was a bit bemused. he decided that the best way to get through was at about 50 mph i followed through just after and drove around him. :dance:

[J.D.]

Recovery of the aforementioned vehicle.....Thought these might be of interest to those who know Lands End Ford and the dangers associated with it. The vehicle was washed downstream in Dec 2009, and I was contracted to remove it, which took place a couple of days ago. Although the depth at the ford was 2 ft, you can see the depth of the water where the vehicle is... :D The vehicle was removed succesfully using my own vehicle (Phoenix) and one of the winch tractors..

The driver in question was an 18 year old girl, who was damn lucky to get out alive. She was rescued by the farmer's wife as it was 3am (!) when she drove in there. Fortunately, to this date there has not been a fatality there.






































(Can you tell I like using window poppers?)




(Extracting it to the road, 3/4 mile away)


(Extracting it to the road, 3/4 mile away)






(Pair of posers!)

[Disco Matt]

I'd be worried about getting swept away while trying to attach the tow chains - plus how on earth do you get a bonnet open and the chains in under that much water? Looks like a SCUBA job!  :lol:

[J.D.]

To get it from under the tree to the shallower water, I used the A pillars and the rotator to lift and pull at the same time. Once it was in shallower water, normally I would have used the chassis, but the bank was too steep, it would have winched itself into the bank, so the front smash plate was used to lift the front end up over the bank. If it was winched from the start, the car would have been driven deeper into the silt, rather than being lifted out of it. In SCUBA gear, you would have had no chance of holding yourself steady in the current, and there were way too many snag hazards for it to be possible.

You can't see in the photos, but there is a rescue boom across the river at 45 degrees downstream, and a guy on each bank with a throwline.