I am the forman of a mobile home service.
I had a real close call Thursday.
We were working in Freeport, five others and myself. It was a 60 foot double-wide trailor, that was in a swamp. We previously put the two halves together, and buttoned it all up, but we hadn't tied it down, because we weren't exactly sure how high it was going. It was allready almost 3 1/2- 4 feet in the air.
We started that morning jacking it up to reach the grade of about 5 1/2- 6 feet .
I was working the jack in the middle of the back, with a man underneath with me, keeping all of the peers tight as we went up, and the others were simalary working in other areas. We had brought the house nearly all the way to grade when I heard someone shout "She's coming down!" I looked up from my jack, toward the far end of the house, the hitchend, and saw it moving, quite rapidly to the right. It had too much momentum for the several peers to stop it, though I'm sure the three hundred block did slow it down. I saw the rails of the house falling and I hit the dirt, trying to avoid being crushed beneath 40 tons of iron, wood, and steel. Amids the exploding concrete and screams I thought to myself "This is it, we're all dead," for there was no way any of us could survive this.
The time it took from start to finish couldn't have been longer then a second, we had no time to get out from under it before it hit the ground, we'd all be crushed or trapped, all but one of us. Then it stopped, about a foot off of the ground, the house came to a halt, it never hit the ground. I was alive. I heard my co-workers screaming to see if anyone was hurt, it could only be expected after such devistation.
The man with me was still moving, and I heard him yell "Get out! Get out!" And we did, quickly! It only took a few moments to find everyone, for we all converged in the same spot, all searching for one another. We were all alive, and aside from a few bumps and scrapes, we were un injured. Between the six of us, we lost no more then a few drops of blood.
Upon further investigation, we found the house to be just as unharmed, though pinned against a tree, the very thing that stopped the house, after sliding 7 1/2 feet to the side, and 4 1/2-5 foot down. On the far rail, on the opposite side of the house, there were two tipped pears, supporting that side from hitting the ground, though the hitch end had made it that far.
We could never have been so lucky to be here. It is truly a miracle that no one died, let alone, without injury. We should have all been dead besides one. Five mangled bodies underneath of a collapsed house with one man to dig us out.


In all This is the injuryies, and luck~
One man was outside of the house, in the direction the house was falling, near the ass-end. When he saw the peers near the hitch bursting under the wieght, he ran, and made it narrowly between the house and the tree.
One man, on the same side but near the hitch, was hit ont the head by the rail, as it started to fall, and by the tips of his toes avoided being caught under the hitch as it smashed into the muddy mess of a pad. He had a tiny bump on his head, with minimal bleeding, and a couple of scrapes.
One man was in the marrage line and tried frantically to stay in between of the two rails which also ended up smashing into the muck bellow. He hurt his elbow.
One man was in the marrage line in the rear of the house, by me, and the rail slamed into his shoulder and back. His arm was hurt, he has a bruise on his back, and he hurt his kneww.
I was beside him, and suffered a blow to the ankle from a falling peer, and have a big bruise and scrape, as well as many scrapes from the crawling.
The last man was left watching as the house crashed down in front of and away from him.

Like I said, this was truly a miraculous event. Thank you Wayne!


For those of you who don't know, Wayne is the Forman before me, friend who lost his life just over 3 months ago. A true friend, who helped us one last time!