My soft shackle failure experience 🤕 -- The Off-Road Recovery That Almost Killed Me

[Bmadda]

You don't take up the slack. That's the whole point of a snatch strap. They are made to stretch and use that energy to pull you out.

Or use that energy to kill or maim somebody...appears the rope doesn't care!

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[the paws]

The root cause of the failure was not the rope or anything mechanical. It was the driver of the Jeep. I’m a country boy and a Mechanical Engineer. Trying to jerk any vehicle with a rope or cable is a recipe for disaster, even if the vehicle is on flat dry ground.

if the Bronco weighed 5000# and the Jeep was going 7 mph (ten feet per second), he was trying to accelerate the Bronco from 0 to 10’/sec in a fraction of a second, say 1/4 of a second. Under those assumptions, the rope was exposed to about 80,000 pounds of force. No wonder it broke. Now if that had been a 3/8” high strength cable, it could cut the top off the Jeep or Bronco and decapitated a driver.

The lesson here is to never ever try to jerk a vehicle no matter the circumstances. Slowly pull on the cable or rope until it is tight, then slowly add pulling force until the other vehicle moves. BUT DON’TJERK ON ANYTHING WITH A CABLE OR ROPE!!!!!!!! PERIOD.

It is standard safety procedure to stay at least the length of the rope or cable away from the said towing cable or rope.

 

[broadicustomworks]

your video is getting traction all over different offroad groups. of course no one wants to watch the video and are making a ton of assumptions. nice to know someone out there could replicate this because they didn't take the time to watch and learn. by the way, i appreciate you responding to everyone to help educate everyone from your experience. And as mentioned previously (and most importantly) I am glad you're ok.

Well said.
I am disheartened by the sheer negativity and condescension (but not surprised) the sharing of the video across multiple FB groups is bringing. Some get it. Most don't. And never will.
Being the smartest or toughest guy in the room is more important than the intended message for most of society it seems.
Caleb, keep on keepin' on. Your intent and exposing yourself to the inevitable onslaught of armchair QB's was well-intentioned and in the right place. It's hard to remain objective and not be ruffled by haters en masse. If you can, you are better than 99% of everyone else on any social platform.

IF just ONE life is saved because someone got the drift, you did your part and then some. Let the "experts" and tough guys go do their own thing.

 

[cr117]

I saw this vid yesterday. I am going to go through my entire recovery kit box in the PW before I go out again. I am sure I will need to replace/upgrade some things.

I 100% blame the soft shackle. The rating on those cheap ones is a joke. Hard to say, but those are dangerous.

As suspected, some are taking the wrong message from this video. In this particular case, the quality of the gear used should not be the main focus, it's how the situation was handled. From what I saw, there were three primary failures:

1. Attachment of a soft shackle to a non-rounded recovery point
2. No clearing of obstacle before a kinetic pull
3. Too much force applied by tow vehicle

Everything else that went wrong is a result of these oversights. No duh the soft shackle was the failure point, that's what they're engineered to do: break before something worse snaps.

I don't care how nice of a soft shackle you attach to a recovery point like that, the circumstances will lead to the same result, potentially worse. If you aren't clearing the 2 feet of packed snow blocking your tire from moving, you might as well hook your kinetic rope up to a tree and try pulling it out of the ground.

@popo_patty, I'm not trying to shame you in any way. We all make mistakes in the moment and it's easy to reflect on what was done wrong in hindsight. I've been guilty of this numerous times. It's very brave of you to share your experience and talk through everything in a public forum. I'm hopeful that by discussing these issues openly, we can all learn from each other's experiences and improve our safety practices in the future. It's important to remember that off roading and vehicle recovery can be dangerous activities if not conducted properly, and understanding the correct procedures and limitations of your equipment is crucial for everyone involved.

 

[userdude]

As suspected, some are taking the wrong message from this video. In this particular case, the quality of the gear used should not be the main focus, it's how the situation was handled. From what I saw, there were three primary failures:

1. Attachment of a soft shackle to a non-rounded recovery point
2. No clearing of obstacle before a kinetic pull
3. Too much force applied by tow vehicle

Everything else that went wrong is a result of these oversights. No duh the soft shackle was the failure point, that's what they're engineered to do: break before something worse snaps.

I don't care how nice of a soft shackle you attach to a recovery point like that, the circumstances will lead to the same result, potentially worse. If you aren't clearing the 2 feet of packed snow blocking your tire from moving, you might as well hook your kinetic rope up to a tree and try pulling it out of the ground.

@popo_patty, I'm not trying to shame you in any way. We all make mistakes in the moment and it's easy to reflect on what was done wrong in hindsight. I've been guilty of this numerous times. It's very brave of you to share your experience and talk through everything in a public forum. I'm hopeful that by discussing these issues openly, we can all learn from each other's experiences and improve our safety practices in the future. It's important to remember that off roading and vehicle recovery can be dangerous activities if not conducted properly, and understanding the correct procedures and limitations of your equipment is crucial for everyone involved.

Agree, except on the soft shackle/non-rounded recovery point. Root cause analysis, if you remove one of the causes, does that realistically change (e.g. lower) the probabilities involved in the incident?

And frankly, I think it could've been worse if the towed hitch point had broken off and flown into the Jeep. Which it almost did. If anybody gets hit with that, they are probably dead or at best very, very seriously injured. Caleb was injured but it was more gory than bad.

At the end of the Off Roadeo Connect I went to at Merus, they did do a little tutorial, about a half hour. They definitely knew what they were talking about, but not the best to be so short and at the end after 6+ hours on the trail.

I think at this point if someone, maybe @popo_patty after his discussions with the pros he's connected with, can post a trustworthy explanation/video how to use kinetic ropes. I've never used one, although I have one.

 

[cr117]

Agree, except on the soft shackle/non-rounded recovery point. Root cause analysis, if you remove one of the causes, does that realistically change (e.g. lower) the probabilities involved in the incident?

Correct, I personally don't think by attaching the soft shackle to an appropriate recovery point would've changed the outcome much if the other two problems were still present. That soft shackle or the rope would likely still break under those forces, but we'll never know for certain. However, in general, it'd improve the chances of a successful recovery, more so if steps are taken to reduce the force of the pull. The purpose of including that in my list of failure points is that it was something that could have been corrected but ended up contributing to the resulting injury.

 

[userdude]

Correct, I personally don't think by attaching the soft shackle to an appropriate recovery point would've changed the outcome much if the other two problems were still present. That soft shackle or the rope would likely still break under those forces, but we'll never know for certain. However, in general, it'd improve the chances of a successful recovery, more so if steps are taken to reduce the force of the pull. The purpose of including that in my list of failure points is that it was something that could have been corrected but ended up contributing to the resulting injury.

I think that's a mistake up there with asking a stranger to pull you out when your trusted group is not too far away. That hasn't really been discussed that much, just hinted at, but off roading really involves a lot of trust (in yourself, others, terrain). In that sense, impatience as it's been pointed out is bad for our particular activity.

Waiting for the group to come back, I have a decent feeling we wouldn't have this video and lessons learned. He would've had more eyes on the situation, and probably one or more people saying dig out instead of pulling right away (and I assume it would've been a more appropriate kinetic pull).

In a sense, the cheap poorly made and hurriedly attached soft shackle did it's job on both pulls, the latter of which could've very well saved a life. In terms of root cause then, I'd probably replace it with improper and hurried setup and execution, both on Caleb's part and his passenger (if he was experienced) and the other driver.

 

[Pilsner]

Or use that energy to kill or maim somebody...appears the rope doesn't care!

Are you aware of kinetic recovery gear? It wasn't a tow strap. There were issues involved, but a kinetic strap is a useful piece of gear and you absolutely use it with rolling momentum.

 

[Bmadda]

Are you aware of kinetic recovery gear? It wasn't a tow strap. There were issues involved, but a kinetic strap is a useful piece of gear and you absolutely use it with rolling momentum.

That's clearly what the Jeep driver thought!

 

[Pilsner]

As suspected, some are taking the wrong message from this video. In this particular case, the quality of the gear used should not be the main focus, it's how the situation was handled. From what I saw, there were three primary failures:

1. Attachment of a soft shackle to a non-rounded recovery point
2. No clearing of obstacle before a kinetic pull
3. Too much force applied by tow vehicle

Everything else that went wrong is a result of these oversights. No duh the soft shackle was the failure point, that's what they're engineered to do: break before something worse snaps.

I don't care how nice of a soft shackle you attach to a recovery point like that, the circumstances will lead to the same result, potentially worse. If you aren't clearing the 2 feet of packed snow blocking your tire from moving, you might as well hook your kinetic rope up to a tree and try pulling it out of the ground.

@popo_patty, I'm not trying to shame you in any way. We all make mistakes in the moment and it's easy to reflect on what was done wrong in hindsight. I've been guilty of this numerous times. It's very brave of you to share your experience and talk through everything in a public forum. I'm hopeful that by discussing these issues openly, we can all learn from each other's experiences and improve our safety practices in the future. It's important to remember that off roading and vehicle recovery can be dangerous activities if not conducted properly, and understanding the correct procedures and limitations of your equipment is crucial for everyone involved.

I'm not taking wrong messages from anything. There are all kinds of conjecture and uninformed opinions in this thread. There were absolutely issues with this recovery as indicated by the results. But using a kinetic device was not the issue. Yes, pulling through uncleared deep snow was an issue along too much speed. Also the shackle should have been attached to the passenger side to pull the front end toward the cleared road, not the drivers side that will pull back into deep snow. But many of the posts here are clearly from people that learned from a video or single Off-Rodeo class at best. The attachment point wasn't an issue as that's not where it broke. No, you don't want straps or shackles that break. You NEVER want a shackle that will break. They are not engineered to break. A standard duty soft shackle from F55 has a minimum break strength of 60k lbs. I have been part of MANY recoveries and have a large selection of recovery gear I have collected over the years and every piece has its place, including kinetic recovery.

 

[Pilsner]

That's clearly what the Jeep driver thought!

How many recoveries have you been a part of?

 

[Beach_Bum]

You don't take up the slack. That's the whole point of a snatch strap. They are made to stretch and use that energy to pull you out.

You are correct/incorrect. With a kinetic rope, the recovery vehicle crawls forward until the slack is gone. Then back-up, yielding some slack, and then pull. At no time, does one enact some Road Runner/Wile-E-Coyote skit stomping on the skinny pedal reeling off the slack expecting some sling-shot effect. That is how failures occur.

 

[userdude]

How many recoveries have you been a part of?

Not that a slapfest between you and Bmadda wouldn't be entertaining, but I believe what he's saying is you don't take a huge running start. You give a couple feet of slack and pull enough to engage and improve the force, but not blow it out. At least, that's what I'm thinking he's saying, and I know he's got some cred.

 

[Beach_Bum]

I 100% blame the soft shackle. The rating on those cheap ones is a joke. Hard to say, but those are dangerous.

Weird that you assign no blame to the driver of the Jeep. Even with the crappiest Chinesium recovery gear, one doesn't conduct a recovery in the manner he did.

 

[Pilsner]

Weird that you assign no blame to the driver of the Jeep. Even with the crappiest Chinesium recovery gear, one doesn't conduct a recovery in the manner he did.

Of course I did. He was too fast even if it would have been less stuck and rolled out. From my post on this page:

"Yes, pulling through uncleared deep snow was an issue along too much speed."

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