JumperAndSon

As an authority on Iron City Beer, I can assure you that my sensitive palate prefers I.C. Light over regular red-eye. Growing up in Braddock Hills, my parents neighbor was Mike Karota, the brewmaster of Pittsburgh Brewing Co. So, after 21 of course, I was awash in Iron City Products as Mike was sure that my friends and I were the future of beer drinking (he was right!).  My 21st birthday party had 4 half barrels that I picked up from the brewery that afternoon. My wedding had 17 cases of beer that I also picked up from the brewery. Any new recipes were brought home in unlabeled bottles for our approval(disposal?). One of Bens project trucks is a 68 Diamond Reo cab over that was an Iron City Beer delivery truck. I brought  a fresh 30 pack of I.C. light to Macungie for everyone's enjoyment, but had no takers! Next time y'all are near Pgh, I'll buy yinz one! Tim

I guess that we missed Martinsburg! Hopefully  some other guys from my area will be heading out on Thursday morning as well. I expect the rain to be over with and the temps to be comfortable or else we will be quire disgruntled! 

If you haven't seen it yet, here is our rig!

Brought back some unsavory memories for sure. Prayers to the families.

Hey y'all!!!

Ben Jumper here, it feels like forevvvvvvvvvverr since I have been here! We have been very busy but not with anything particularly cool so I haven't bothered to share. Facebook is such an amazing website and I often find myself satisfied with it's contents alone. But we recently added another large two stroke powered vehicle to the collection, we are beginning a major transformation on it and I was told the I had to let you guys know what's up!

So here it is. A 1989 Simon-Duplex. 10 person crew cab, 40,000 GVW, 350 HP 6V92TA, Allison Automatic. Came from the Bryn Athyn VFD, thanks to our hero Randy (1958 FWD) hooking us up! We are taking the fire pumper setup off of it and putting a western hauler bed on it to pull our camping trailer. This will be our new family vacation vehicle to replace the last hauler we had that unfortunately was destroyed in a tragic pile-up on the Pennsylvania Turnpike. More details and pictures to come!!

Ben

P.S. I really hope you can see the pictures because I am not positive that they will actually upload correctly.

Hey guys! All is well in the Jumper camp tonight. Thanks for all of the thoughts and prayers, we truly appreciate it.

State Trooper told us that during the whiteout, a super trucker hauling 2 coils of steel ran into an accident at about 60. The car carrier and the car that was stopped then began to burn. As the car driver was crossing the pike, the FedEx guy hit the car hauler and another semi hit the FedEx truck to keep from hitting the guy. We were following another semi at about 30 mph and he slid hard toward the median. I figured that there was something on the road so I did the same and we both stopped near the median, I was about 35 or 40 feet from the trailer. I told everyone to hold on because we were in a really bad spot. A caravan came to stop off to outr right and an oversize load right at 80k came in and pitched it into the guardrail, you couldn't have fit a matchpack between him and the caravan. I saw a green shaker getting way too big way too fast out of the snow and told them to brace. The next thing I know, I was on the floor over the armrest of my Bostrum and then under the dash. The semi started to jackknife and hit us with the front drive axle on out right tailight. I think that he was doing at least 35 when he hit us. We both carried forward and I hit the box trailer squarish and rolled the protection bar under. I'm pretty sure that my front bumper hit the trailer wheels because the engine and trans of the bus were dumped to the rear and down. The cowl and both windshields were smashed by my hood. I smelled gas and shut the key off and waited to see if we were going to get hit again. There were a couple of wrecks behind us and gave us a "safe" pocket in the wreckage. I got the wife and kids out and we grabbed a few things and stood out of the snow in a horse trailer that had wrecked on the other side of the truck that hit us. The fire got to be huge, with a constant pop of truck tires and the new vans tires burning on the car carrier. The fire burned for about a half hour before they could get a fire truck to it. The wind was blowing the fire towards us but they got it out before it spread ton he next row of trucks. It was so hot that it melted some of the coil trucks trailer.

The ambulance was coincidentally behind us by about 10 rows of junk. Those guys were great, checked everyone involved out, helped my wife and kids greatly. I wasn't wearing my seat belt due to a broken #9 rib on my right side but everyone else was. All but Ben have seatbelt bruises but way better than the alternative. My oldest daughter had a concussion about a year ago and her seat took the brunt of the hit as the bus folded, but aside from a small bump on her head, she is fine. Wife has some pulled muscles and bruises but is ok. The 2 other girls are a little beat up but ok as well. They got an ambulance ride to Somerset hospital, while Ben and I stayed at the accident scene until stuff was sorted out. We were in the accident around 3, the State Trooper rode us to meet the rest at the hospital around 8:30. We stayed with a box truck driver to keep warm while we waited, he was a hoot! His truck was untouched.

The miracle was that there were no major injuries at all in a situation where there should have been many fatalities. It was a perfect storm of luck in a bad situation. If either of the semis would've hit the caravan it would've been curtains for them, I'm glad it was us instead of them, the bus was built well. The horse in the trailer was unharmed, the dually pulling it mashed a new Ford into the oversize load and the pregnant woman and fetus were both unharmed. The guy crossing the road was unscathed as well as the semi drivers whose trucks burned. Behind us, a semi hit the back of another's trailer and knocked the cab almost off but he was unharmed. Everyone was ok, that's all that we could ask for.

Now the fun with insurance begins. Thanks again for the thoughts and prayers, it really means a lot. I'll get Ben to post pics later.