Ingenuity vs Safety

When Steph and I got married we had one car between us: A '95 Jeep Grand Cherokee with ~170k miles. I loved that Jeep. It reminded me of the Jeep my Dad had when I was growing up. It was a good choice for the Utah weather. But, having so many miles on it meant that it could need parts and fixing at any time. We dealt with the tires and troubleshot the radiator leaks as they came (frequently.) At one point a rear tire developed a slow leak. I just topped it off with air every few days.

Anyway, I left town for a trip. I think I had just flown out to Washington for a job interview. When the time came I flew back to Utah and Steph was coming from Provo to pick me up at the Salt Lake City Airport. Unfortunately, she didn't make it. Somewhere around the point of the mountain she felt a tire pop and hobbled with the car to the median on the highway. Apparently I forgot to tell her that the tire was losing air...

Well, after some help from friends who got me out of the airport I met Steph in a parking lot. She had the Jeep off the highway but it was late, we were both tired, and we just wanted to be home. There was a spare in the trunk, so I decided to take the kit out to put it on. Unfortunately, when I used the jack, I found that it was unable to get the car high enough to get the wheel off. There were no other points to try and I was frustrated. This is where I messed up.

Being college students, we had a bunch of old textbooks in the trunk... My thought was: let's stack some textbooks to put under the jack! It almost worked. We got the car high enough for the wheel to have clearance, but as I was working the wheel off I rocked the Jeep a little too much. Stacks of paper make for a poor foundation when there are lateral forces and all. The car fell off the jack and I found my arm in the wheel well in between the frame and the wheel. After the adrenaline wore down a bit I was able to more accurately assess my situation. I was incredibly fortunate to escape with just a bruise to the forearm rather than any broken bones or any number of other complications.

I think I made the decisions I did for a few reasons:

1. We were poor, so I didn't want to spend money
2. I was tired, so I just wanted it over with
3. I was prideful, I wanted to handle things myself rather than depend on others

For these reasons, and probably others, I made a choice of convenience rather than safety. I escaped the worst of the possible consequences, but it was a bad choice.

We ended up calling AAA for help getting the spare on. We drove back home pretty slowly but halfway back we conjured up some smoke from the rear differential. The Jeep had enough of us and wasn't going anywhere. We found somebody to help us home and finally got to sleep after the chaos. We later had to scrap the car since it needed more repairs than it was worth.

It's one of our quintessential "newly married and poor" stories. In retrospect it's easy to say we should have just called AAA from the start, taken a taxi or had a friend drive us all the way home, and worried about details later. In the moment, it didn't seem like an option. Nevertheless, it wasn't worth risking my arm or gambling with the capability of the car home.

Moral: Don't get creative with safety. Just be safe. Worry about the other consequences later.