I Buried a 60,000 Pound Excavator

Hinzugefügt: 2026-05-13

[00:00:00]Well guys, I've really made a mess of things and this time I'm not sure if I can even dig my way out of it. And I'm starting the video down here at the house because I don't want to show you how bad the excavator is buried until I show you how it got buried like that.

[00:00:21]So, if if you're new here, I'll catch you up real quick. I'm digging a pond on the back of my property with a Sandy 26 ton excavator.

[00:00:30]And the last thing I want to do is call them and tell them that I buried their machine and I don't know how to get it out. But the last video I published, everything looked great. I brought in a professional contractor to help me get started on the pond. He did a great job, made a ton of progress, and then I drove down there and I thought, I'm not doing anything too crazy. You know, I didn't even think there was a chance I'd get stuck and I did. So, that's where we're going to start. I want to show you what I did last night and then we're going to try to dig out of it. So, here we are a couple hours after the professional operator left and this is what the area looked like when he left.

[00:01:13]So, what what Billy did is working. The water from everywhere up there is running down into here and then we're pumping it out.

[00:01:23]The problem is this area right here. I'd like to, you know, all of that has to get dug out. I might as well do it now.

[00:01:30]And there's another deeper hole over here that's got a lot of water. And if I if I dig out this, then that water should run down here, too.

[00:02:00]Now, I really don't think that what I was trying to do was overly ambitious because I haven't moved the machine yet.

[00:02:08]And I'd watched Billy, who was my operator I brought in. I'd watched him drive back and forth across this area all day long. But if I'm being honest, he mostly drove in straight lines and then he would push down with the boom to turn the machine. And he was able to strip the top soil off of this entire work area. And my thought was, my plan was to scoop out all of this material like I just mentioned, which I'm basically doing without even moving.

[00:02:38]And then I was going to drive the machine around to the other side of that pile and set the spoils out onto the backside of where the dam is going to be.

[00:02:50]If you watch, I did something ignorant here. And I'm not trying to be overly harsh. I'm just being real. It's ignorant because I didn't know any better. And you'll be able to see exactly what I'm talking about. We're almost to the point it goes wrong. And if you look at the machine here, the machine is sitting on top of this muddy ground. These types of big machines don't have that much more pounds per square inch of pressure than the small machines, but they are applying that pressure to a large area all at once.

[00:03:21]And I don't really understand why I decided to do it this way, but when I get up a little further, I decided to turn the machine. And I did it in a very awkward manner.

[00:03:56]So, I turned the machine like that because I wanted to be able to reach out and scoop up all of this material. But I immediately knew that whenever I tried to push down to turn the machine using the boom that really I just pushed the back of the machine down into the mud and that I was so close to the edge of this that the the ground just pushed out from under me. And I knew I had a problem, but I actually made it worse trying to make it better. Here I'm trying to lift up and here I'm just doing it wrong. and I figure it out in a minute, but it's basically too late. And I'm not stuck right now. I'm just sunken that the ground level's even with the top of the tracks. So, anytime I try to move, I'm pushing a lot of material with the undercarriage. You see right here, I'm digging in with the boom like I should be, trying to pull myself, although I should have been lifting the front of the machine up more. And I got some practice with this, trying to get this machine out. and I got a little better at it, but it feels like once I transitioned from setting on top of the ground to being sunk down in the ground, as soft as this is, I just I really couldn't pull myself back up. Now, if you want to leave a comment saying that I don't know what I'm doing, you are absolutely correct. You see me trying to lift the front of the machine and pull with the boom and then drive out of it and then try to push from the back and continue to try to drive the same way while I'm pushing and pulling.

[00:05:33]At one point, I guess I decided to dig out in front of the tracks right here and then try that same thing again.

[00:05:40]But if you want to tell me that I don't know what I'm doing or I'm not a very good operator, you're welcome to type that comment, but it's kind of redundant because I'm saying it myself that I could have done this better, but I was learning as I went. And right here, it felt like I'd pulled myself back up on top of the ground and I was filling in my tracks.

[00:06:03]Now, when I say that I'm already pointing out the things I didn't do well enough, if you know a better way to do some of it, let me know that. You see, I got back up on top of the ground right there, and then I tried to turn. All I want to do is turn and drive the machine out of here. I'm not trying to do anything else except get the machine out of the mud.

[00:06:24]And when I pushed down on solid ground on the far side of the machine, then tried to turn, my track sunk in again.

[00:06:34]And I'm just in this same pattern where I can move, but I'm I'm moving while I'm sunk and I'm not getting out. I tried lifting the machine up and shoving material underneath the tracks, and it just continues in this same pattern.

[00:06:54]So, just describing my mindset in this moment is I'm not really panicked because I'm still able to move, but I am getting worried that every time I try to use the boom to push myself or pull myself, I'm tearing up the ground again and losing places that I can use as leverage. And this is a very expensive machine.

[00:07:19]Something that this size that's almost brand new is going to cost $250,000 roughly. I mean, that's not an exact price, just ballpark, but it's a valuable piece of equipment. And it's not mine. So, I'm really worried that it'll get stuck down here and I won't be able to get anything big enough down here to pull me out. So, what I wanted to do started off pretty innocent. I only wanted to move the machine maybe 20 ft this way. Not driving around, not turning. Just drive this way a little bit and then dig this out. Then get out of the area and move those spoils out of the way. Didn't seem like I was running any risk of getting stuck because when Billy was here, he was back and forth and turning and back and forth and doing fine.

[00:08:09]But I got sunk. And once it sunk, it was so deep that I can go I can move all I want, but I can't get back up on top of the ground. So, I can grab the material in front of me, lift and pull while I drive and move forward, and it feels like I'm coming up out of it, but then it just sinks back in. So, it's just too soft, and I'm probably messing it up. So, that clip you just watched catches you up to right now and a stuck excavator. And I got to see if I can get it out. Now, I'm not taking the camera down in the mud with me. This is going to be a hectic process, and the last thing I want to be doing is focused on the camera while I'm trying to get the machine out. Now, you're going to watch me do that exact same process, but I'm a little bit more calm, got a little bit more practice at it, and I've had time to think it through. So, I'm digging out the area in front of the tracks and then trying to give myself a slope to climb up on top of the ground level instead of pushing through the ground level. But it doesn't work. See, at the beginning, I had better luck digging out in front and then pushing from behind rather than pulling. It seems like pulling should work. Then you see me here lifting the machine up and trying to push material under the tracks and then I dig out from under it. And then I push myself, but I'm still not getting up on top of the material. I'm still bulldozing with the underc carriage.

[00:09:43]And it it went like that for a while.

[00:09:45]Now, total time to cross this was about 20 minutes from the footage. I finally got to here and I got some solid ground in front of me and I was able to lift on the front of the machine and pull and finally work up on top of the ground right there for the first time in a long time and drive out.

[00:10:06]So once I got the machine out of that mess, I decided to come around to this side and try to dig out the dam that I had built.

[00:10:16]This was always going to be a temporary dam, but I didn't mean it for it to be this temporary. But I realized my number one problem through this entire project will be keeping the mud and the water out. I mean, the mud is is there, but keeping the water draining out so that the mud can dry is going to be the biggest challenge I have. I spent another hour digging this out and getting it all to drain down. And then I went down there and started the pump up and and pumped a lot of this water out.

[00:10:47]And unfortunately, we've got more rain coming tomorrow.

[00:10:51]At this point, I'm wondering if a machine like that could ever actually be stuck because I mean, if you allow for the idea that you're going to that you've got a couple dry days, that makes a difference, too.

[00:11:04]But if you've always got the ability to just keep moving material out of your way, I don't know. I guess there is really such a thing as like quicksand mud that just doesn't have a bottom. But in general terms, even a rookie or a dork like me can just keep moving material out of the way and then using the boom to push or pull and eventually it'll come out.

[00:11:28]But there was never once a a point when it was the the machine's fault. I You guys saw how I sunk. That's just ignorance, which is lack of experience to not recognize that the soft part of that was over there and what might happen. But now I know. And the other thing I really learned here was when the ground's really wet like that, seems like you can go backward and forward and sit on top of the ground with all that ground pressure, but if you turn, it digs in that mud. And when it digs, now you're setting down lower and when you try to move, you're trying to come up out of a hole that you just dug. So, it seems to me like as much as possible, don't turn down in the mud.

[00:12:17]I'm really glad I didn't have to call Sandy and tell them that their machine was buried so deep the cab wouldn't turn. That would have been a bad conversation probably. So, anyway, I appreciate you guys taking time to watch the video. I'll put links on the screen to a couple more of our videos and I'll see you next