Mangled in Mango

Nick’s Towing Service in Rutherford, N.J., is one of the most respected road service companies in the country. Owner Nicholas F. Testa founded the company back in 1972 and now runs 30 pieces of equipment serving 48 states. After 40 years there is nothing they haven’t encountered, both in equipment or situation.

On Aug. 12, Nick’s received a call from the local police department to recover a tractor-trailer rollover.“This tractor with a chassis and container was negotiating a ramp from Route 3 East to Route 17 North in Rutherford, New Jersey, when it rolled on its side,” Nick said.Nick’s sent heavy operator Jeremy Honey in their Century 1075S 75-ton rotator, Tom Prince in their Century 40-ton rotator, Bob Avella in a 35-ton Century wrecker, and Shawn Heres in a V-70 Vulcan. Nick went to the scene to supervise the recovery.“After looking at the bill of lading, we found it was carrying mango juice in glass bottles,” Nick said. “The juice had started to leak from the glass bottles onto the roadway causing some difficulty working the job.“It was a sticky situation for the towers to work with.”This unit was a permitted overweight container bringing the gross weight to just under 100,000 lbs.“We used four heavies on this job. … Due to the weight and shifting of the load, we placed three wreckers on the lower side, one of which was the catch truck and one Vulcan V-70 to take the tractor over.“Once uprighted the tractor proved to have extensive damage to the rears, so it was separated from the container and chassis and towed away.”Operator Artie Robert drove out in Nick’s tractor to pull the container because the casualty tractor was mangled and Brian Woolsey arrived in their emergency response van.“We placed our tractor under the container and chassis unit for a tedious removal from the scene to do the shifted load,” Nick said. “The health department condemned the entire load of juice so it had to be disposed of. We drove the tractor load of juice to a garbage transfer station and unloaded it.“It was a great team effort and the authorities were extremely happy with the job.”