Washed over plans
Tides at Kingsport Beach quickly submerge truck.
It might not be the best time to hum country crooner Corb Lund’s catchy “Truck Got Stuck” tune when Stephen Lutz is within earshot.
Lutz had the misfortune of watching his 1996 Ford half-ton become completely submerged by the fast-moving tides at the beach in Kingsport July 15.
The Aylesford resident arrived at the beach at about 1:30 p.m. for a fishing trip. He saw tracks where trucks had backed trailers carrying boats down to the water earlier that day, and he decided to do the same.
Unfortunately, this plan didn’t exactly go off without a hitch. The tide came rolling in faster than Lutz had anticipated.
“It was amazing. I only had two straps on the boat… we got out and each of us unhooked a strap and by the time we had the straps unhooked, our feet were wet,” he recalled in a brief phone interview July 16.
“It just kept coming in and coming in.”
Things only went from bad to worse when Lutz hopped in the driver’s seat in an attempt to move the truck he’s owned for about five years closer to shore.
“I went to pull ahead and she spun, and down it went,” he said.
“The tide was coming in and like within 11 minutes it was under water.”
They tried to free the Ford with another four-by-four truck and some tow rope, but to no avail. The truck wouldn’t budge, and the water came in at such a rate that Lutz was left to watch the tide rise over it until only the hood was visible.
With tow-truck companies unable to come until the tide was out, Lutz set out on the water to cast some lines in the meantime.
“We went there to go fishing and there wasn’t a whole lot we could do,” he said.
Chrissy Lynk shared a video of the truck submerged in water on Facebook later that day, and the social media post had been viewed more than 13,000 times as of mid-afternoon July 16.
“My daughter works at the Tide’s In Canteen and when I dropped her off for work the RCMP were there on the wharf, so I asked her boss what was going on and she said that there was a truck under the water, they got stuck and didn’t have enough time before the tide covered it,” said Lynk.
“There was nothing they could
do, so they went out on their boat until the tide went down (in) four hours or so.”
This isn’t the first time she’s heard of something like this happening when a truck’s tires go off the loading ramp at the beach and get stuck in the sand, the Kingsport resident said.
“It has happened before down there over the years. People do
not realize how fast the tide comes in.”
As for Lutz, his luck seemed to change with the tides. They returned from the fishing trip with four bass.
“It wasn’t a total waste,” he joked.
Friends were able to help Lutz get his old Ford off of the beach by about 7 p.m. that same day.
He said the whole debacle received mixed reviews, with some people assuming he intentionally parked there, others offering their sympathies and several, including Lutz, having a laugh at the Ford’s expense.
“Oh well. No one was hurt and everybody got some good laughs out of it. I was laughing as hard as anybody – might as well laugh than cry,” he said.
He’s decided against trying to repair the truck, which he had recently done some body work to in hopes of painting it.
“It’s toast,” he said, adding that it’s not worth the insurance claim.
“She’s just a parts truck now.”