‘The bumper jack was starting to fall forward’

“The most serious one was when I was working on my car in the garage. The kids were young and we were about to go on a holiday down east. I had a big Chevy station wagon. It was all packed and ready to go, and the muffler blew on it. I wanted to save some money because we were going on holidays, so I decided to change the muffler myself. So I backed it into the garage, got out the bumper jack, jacked it up and took the back wheel off. I slid under the car and was reefing and banging and trying to get the muffler off. At some point, I decided to take a break, and I was just laying there when I heard this crackling noise. I looked over and saw that the bumper jack was starting to fall forward — I forgot to brace the front wheels. And the bumper jack is digging into the cement — that’s what was making the noise.

“So I slide out from under the car just as it comes down and the drum goes right into the cement. And there was an upright support post in the garage, and when I slid out I banged my head on it, and kind of knocked myself out. It was a loud noise, and so my wife, who was in the house, heard it and came running out to the garage and the car is down on one side and she looks around and all she can basically see is these legs sticking out of the fender well, and she figured, of course, that I was crushed. And so she starts to scream and runs in to call for help, and her screaming kind of brought me around. Then when she found out what I had done, well, she went up one side of me and down the other. All because I was in a hurry to get going on my holidays.”